shape

Less common meanings

5. 5
   verbdialectalNorthern EnglandScotlandtransitive

   To bring something into being; to create or make it.

   Similarmake, create, fashion, craft

   Note

   Northern English and Scots keep this rare sense of making outright, which is closest to the "creation" the Old English noun behind the "condition" sense could mean. It carries old strong forms: shapen as a participle and shope or shoop as a past. Satan's Invisible World Discovered (1685) speaks of what "the Mighty God of Heaven shoop." Elsewhere, use created or made.

6. 6
   nounarchaiccountable

   A mold used for making blancmange, jelly, and similar dishes, or a portion of such food turned out in a molded form.

   It was brawn and shape for high tea.

   1978, Jane Gardam, God on the Rocks

   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, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], The Return of the Soldier

   Note

   An older kitchen word, now rare, for a molded sweet and for the mold itself. It often goes without an article, like the name of a dish. Rebecca West (1918) has "a little rhubarb and shape," and Jane Gardam's God on the Rocks (1978) serves "brawn and shape for high tea." Modern readers will usually need jelly or blancmange instead. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • The Rebecca West work containing the quotation, The Return of the Soldier, was published in 1918. gutenberg.org
   • West's novel contains the exact phrase; it is spoken by Margaret Grey. gutenberg.org
   • Jane Gardam wrote God on the Rocks, first published in 1978. openlibrary.org
   • God on the Rocks contains the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
7. 7
   verbobsolete

   To imagine something, or to form an idea of it in the mind.

   Oft my jealousy / Shapes faults that are not.

   c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”

   Note

   A lost mental sense: forming something in the mind, often something that is not there. Shakespeare's Othello gives the classic line, "Oft my jealousy / Shapes faults that are not," where imagination invents instead of perceiving. Because the sense is obsolete, it now reads as a Shakespearean echo. For ordinary writing, imagine or conceive does the job without the period color. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • Shape has an obsolete sense meaning to imagine or conceive. en.wiktionary.org
   • The quotation occurs in Shakespeare's Othello; its speaker is Iago in Act 3, scene 3. folger.edu
8. 8
   verbobsolete

   To suit something, or to be adjusted so as to conform to it.

   The more of you 'twas felt, the more it shap'd / Unto my end of stealing them

   1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”
9. 9
   nounobsolete

   A loaded die: one weighted or altered to fall a particular way, used for cheating.

   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…
10. 10
    noun

    A rolled or hammered metal piece (such as a bar, beam, or angle iron) whose cross section differs from that of plain merchant bar.
11. 11
    nounrare

    A piece roughly forged almost to the form it will have once it is completely forged or fitted.
12. 12
    noun

    In Hack, a structure grouping several fields, each with its own name and data type.