shelving

English

Etymology

By surface analysis, shelve +‎ -ing.

Adjective

shelving (comparative more shelving, superlative most shelving)

1. Sloping (as opposed to horizontally flat or vertically upright).

   Synonyms: inclining, pitched, tilted

   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona‎^[1], Act III, Scene 1:

     Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground, / And built so shelving that one cannot climb it / Without apparent hazard of his life.

   • 1789, William Gilpin, Observations relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the year 1776‎^[2], London: R. Blamire, Volume 2, Section 36, p. 157:

     We still continued winding round Skiddaw, the sides of which are every where rather shelving, than steep.

   • 1858, George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Volume 2, “Janet’s Repentance,” Chapter 3, p. 87,^[3]

     her cheeks, which, on Whitsunday, loomed through a Turnerian haze of net-work, were, on Trinity Sunday, seen reposing in distinct red outline on her shelving bust, like the sun on a fog-bank

   • 1914, T. E. Lawrence, chapter 5, in The Wilderness of Zin,‎^[4], London: Jonathan Cape, published 1936, page 109:

     The town of Abda is built upon the top and down the steeply shelving face of an isolated rocky spur,

   • 1987, Edward Rutherfurd, Sarum‎^[5], London: Century, page 6:

     […] a gently shelving plain led to a huge forest through which there were tracks that could safely be followed.

Translations

sloping steeply

• Maori: tahatō

Verb

shelving

1. present participle and gerund of shelve

Noun

shelving (countable and uncountable, plural shelvings)

1. Shelves collectively.

   a shelving unit

   There is ample shelving in the basement.

2. (chiefly in the plural) The side-rails of a cart or waggon.
   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 47:

     So, creaking and creaking, and the shelvins skirling under the weight of their load, they passed that danger point, the carts plodded into motion again […]

3. (now rare) A sloping surface.

   Synonyms: declivity, slope

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress‎^[6], London: Nath. Ponder, page 82:

     […] the way was all along set so full of Snares, Traps, Gins, and Nets here, and so full of Pits, Pitfalls, deep holes and shelvings down there, that had it now been dark […] had he had a thousand souls, they had in reason been cast away;

   • 1844, Charles Dickens, chapter 35, in Martin Chuzzlewit‎^[7], page 412:

     [The little room] had more corners in it than the brain of an obstinate man; was full of mad closets, into which nothing could be put that was not specially invented and made for that purpose; had mysterious shelvings and bulk-heads […]

   • 1919, Henry Blake Fuller, chapter 29, in Bertram Cope’s Year‎^[8], Chicago: R.F. Seymour, page 276:

     dry light sand, blown from higher shelvings, striped the dark wet edges of the shore

   • 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel‎^[9], New York: The Modern Library, Part 2, Chapter 24, p. 345:

     Frau Von Zeck settled her powerful chins upon the coarse shelving of her Wagnerian breasts […]

Translations

shelves collectively

Related terms

• shelfing