shapes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of shape.

   The artist arranged several overlapping shapes across the canvas.

   Toddlers learn to sort blocks by their shapes and colors.

   Note

   Most often the plural counts outlines and figures: the circles and squares a child sorts, the forms laid across a canvas. Metalworkers use it in a narrower trade sense. Their shapes are rolled or hammered pieces such as bars, beams and angle irons, with a cross section different from merchant bar, or rough forgings brought nearly to their finished form. The same spelling is also the verb's present-tense form, as in a river that shapes its valley.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of shape.

   Each generation shapes the language it inherits in subtle ways.

   The river shapes the valley over thousands of years.

   Note

   Usually followed by an object, whether the work is literal or figurative: wind shapes a dune, and a mentor shapes a career. The influence reading sits comfortably beside the physical one. Older strands survive only at the edges. Shape meaning simply "to create" is rare and belongs to Scotland and the North of England, and "to imagine" is obsolete. In ordinary modern prose, shapes means forming something or influencing it.

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