shape

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The outer form of something, such as a circle or square.

   What shape shall we make the cookies, stars or circles?

2. 2
   verb

   To give something a particular form, or to influence how it develops.

   The teacher helped shape the way her students thought.

3. 3
   noun

   The condition or state that someone or something is in.

   After months of training, she was in great shape.

Common collocations

• shape someone's thinking Verb + noun

From Middle English shap, 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”). 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. The noun is cognate wi…

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