Meaning & use
shelves
Last updated
flat, horizontal surfaces attached to a wall or built into furniture, used for holding or displaying objects.
See it in a sentence
The bookshelves sagged under the weight of decades of paperbacks.
She stocked the shelves with canned goods before the storm hit.
A note on using this word
As a verb, 'shelves' also describes the act of a surface gradually sloping downward, as in a beach that 'shelves' gently into the sea.
Words with a similar meaning
racksledges
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Another way to use it
2. verb
slopes gradually, especially of land or the sea floor.
The seabed shelves steeply just beyond the harbor wall.
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