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.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Shape is an Old English word related to scoop. Its original meaning was “to create.”

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…

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary