shelter

Pluralshelters

Formsshelters, sheltering, sheltered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A place where a person or animal can find protection from the weather, especially rain, storms, or cold, sometimes used as somewhere to sleep.

   Like a harbor where ships rest, safe from the rough open sea.

   The climbers built a rough shelter to wait out the blizzard.

   A shallow cave offered the only shelter for miles around.

   Similarrefuge, haven, cover

   Note

   The oldest picture behind the word is military. Old English sċildtruma, literally "shield-troop," was a company of soldiers whose locked shields formed a roof or wall. Middle English sheltron named that covering itself. From a wall of shields, the meaning softened to any place that keeps off rain, storm or cold. A rock shelter, the overhang or shallow cave that nature provides, is the plainest kind.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Anything that serves to provide protection or cover, keeping whatever is behind it safe from harm or danger.

   The dense hedge provided welcome shelter from the driving rain.

   Soldiers used the ruined wall as shelter against enemy fire.

   Similarcover, protection, shield, screen

   Note

   Here shelter works as a mass noun, like food or water, and takes no article or plural: people need shelter, not a shelter. That is why it fits so naturally into lists of basic needs such as air, water, food and shelter. When you mean one particular structure, switch to the countable place of refuge. Keep this sense for cover itself, as in gave shelter from the rain or found little shelter.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To provide cover for someone or something, shielding them from damage or harassment.

   Thick trees shelter the house from the worst of the storms.

   The cliff sheltered the harbor from the pounding waves.

   Similarshield, protect, screen, guard

   Oppositeexpose

   Note

   The transitive verb takes whoever or whatever is protected as its object, with from naming the danger. Dryden in 1663 has ruins that "sheltered once his sacred head." Southey in 1829 pairs it with received, of convents taking people in. Drop the object and it becomes the verb for taking cover: the trees shelter us, but we shelter under the trees.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The condition of being protected or shielded from danger, harm, or the weather.

   They remained in shelter throughout the long bombardment.

   After hours in the open, the warmth of shelter was a relief.

   Similarsafety, protection, cover, refuge

   Oppositeexposure

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A refuge or institution that provides temporary housing and a place to sleep for people in need or in danger.

   The city opened an emergency shelter for families displaced by the flood.

   After losing her home, she spent two weeks in a shelter downtown.

   Similarrefuge, sanctuary

   Note

   Compounds here name the people taken in: women's shelter, homeless shelter. By metonymy, the word also covers the institution as well as the building, so a shelter can hire staff or turn people away. Home is a near synonym, but shelter keeps the stress on temporary, emergency housing rather than a settled place to live.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A small, simple above-ground structure built to give temporary cover from the weather, usually with no door to close.

   Hikers can rest at the open shelter halfway up the trail.

   A simple lean-to shelter kept the worst of the rain off them.

   Similarhut

   Note

   Usually the second half of a compound: bus shelter, waiting shelter. The first word says who uses it or what it is for, and shelter supplies the bare structure: a roof, perhaps a wall or two, nothing to lock. In Lawrence R. Bourne's Well Tackled! (1928), a detective edges along the inside of one to get within earshot of two men talking.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A structure, usually partly or fully underground, that protects people from deadly conditions outside, including military attack.

   The villagers took refuge in a concrete shelter built to withstand artillery fire.

   Cold War families dug a shelter beneath the backyard in case of nuclear attack.

   Similarbunker

   Note

   Here the compound names the danger rather than the user: tornado shelter, fallout shelter, air-raid shelter. Dug in or half-buried, built against storms and bombs alike, it is the sense that stands closest to the word's battlefield beginnings as a wall of locked shields raised against attack.

8. 8
   verbintransitive

   To take cover, moving to a safe place away from danger or the weather.

   People shelter wherever they can when the sirens sound.

   When the hail started, the hikers sheltered behind a large boulder.

   Similarhide

9. 9
   nouncountable

   An establishment that takes in stray, lost, or unwanted animals and houses them until they can be adopted.

   The shelter takes in dozens of stray cats each month.

   She volunteers at a shelter that rescues abandoned dogs.

   Similarpound

   Note

   A narrowing of the refuge for people in need, often used with the definite article: adopt from the shelter, look for pets at the shelter. Context alone makes clear that animals are meant. A kill shelter is one that puts down animals it cannot place, and the phrase usually carries criticism.

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