shape – English noun declension

English noun forms of shape

Noun: shape
Singularshape
Pluralshapes

Sample Sentences

  • The used bookshop wouldn’t offer much due to the poor shape of the book.
  • The vet checked to see what kind of shape the animal was in.
  • We exercise to keep in good physical shape.
  • What shape shall we use for the cookies? Stars, circles, or diamonds?
  • No design right can exist in features of appearance of a product which are solely dictated by the product's technical function (see Dyson Ltd v Vax Ltd [2010] EWHC 1923 (Pat) which held the shape of the Dyson vacuum cleaner to be unregisterable as it was purely functional) [...] [2012, Robert Bradgate, Fidelma White, Margaret Llewelyn, Commercial Law, page 429:]
  • Your head is a funny shape, rather oblong.
  • What if God's plans and actions do mold the shape of human events? [2006, Berdj Kenadjian, Martin Zakarian, From Darkness to Light:]
  • A formal feature indicating a pre-Roman origin is word-final i, which is rare in the inherited nominal and adjectival lexicon. On the basis of this we may conclude that ispéli is likely the original shape of this word. [2025, Cid Swanenvleugel, The Pre-Roman Elements of the Sardinian Lexicon, page 356:]
  • And if I 'm late for supper there 's a dish of macaroni cheese you must put in the oven and a tin of tomatoes to eat with it. And there is a little rhubarb and shape. [1918 March, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], chapter IV, in The Return of the Soldier, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., published 1918, →OCLC, page 92:]
  • It was brawn and shape for high tea. [1978, Jane Gardam, God on the Rocks, Abacus, published 2014, page 111:]
  • A top cheater seldom ever uses shapes or loaded dice because they do not assure you of winning. [1961, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Gambling and Organized Crime: Hearings, page 76:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-West Germanic *gaskap
3. Old English ġesċeap
4. Proto-Germanic *skēpą
5. Proto-West Germanic *skāp
6. Old English sċeap
7. Middle English schap
8. English shape
9. From Middle English schap, schape, from Old English ġesceap (“shape, form, created being, creature, creation, dispensation, fate, condition, sex, gender, genitalia”), from Proto-West Germanic *ga- + *skap, from Proto-Germanic *ga- + *skapą (“shape, nature, condition”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kep- (“to split, cut”).
10. The verb is from Middle English shapen, schapen, from Old English scieppan (“to shape, form, make, create, assign, arrange, destine, order, adjudge”), from Proto-West Germanic *skappjan, from Proto-Germanic *skapjaną (“to create”), from the noun.
11. The noun is cognate with Middle Dutch schap (“form”), Middle High German geschaf (“creature”), Icelandic skap (“state, condition, temper, mood”). The verb is cognate with Dutch scheppen, German schaffen, Swedish skapa (“create, make”), Norwegian Bokmål skape (“create”). Doublet of -ship. See: Old English Nouns 'scieppan', Icelandic Nouns 'skap'.

Verbs referencing "shape"

Dutch Nouns schape, Russian Nouns шафер.