shouldering

Pluralshoulderings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of shoulder.

   She is shouldering most of the blame for the failed project.

   The eldest son is shouldering the family's debts alone.

   Note

   The verb form takes its object directly, while the noun needs "of": shouldering the debts, as opposed to the shouldering of the debts. Every sense of the verb is transitive, so a bare "she is shouldering" sounds unfinished. The object also tells you which meaning is at work: shouldering a door is the literal push, and shouldering a debt is bearing a burden. For the noun built on the same form, see the noun for a shoulder-push.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of pushing or barging into someone or something with the shoulder.

   The referee penalized the shouldering as a foul in the second half.

   A sharp shouldering sent his opponent stumbling sideways into the rail.

   Similarshove, barge, charge, push

   Note

   A countable noun as well as an action: it takes a plural, and the plural is where it comes alive. Jeff Mann's Loving Mountains, Loving Men (2005) places tourists at the Jefferson Memorial amid the "restless shoulderings" of a crowd. That is not one shove but a steady jostle. Use the plural for that repeated pressing, and the singular for a single barge, such as a foul on the field.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   In building, the use of corbels, brackets, or other members that jut from a wall to carry a load.

   The masons designed careful shouldering to carry the weight of the arch above.

   The bridge's shouldering transfers the deck load onto the stone piers.

   Similarcorbeling, bracing

   Note

   A builder's word, where the shoulder belongs to the structure rather than a person: a corbel or bracket juts out and takes the weight, much as a shoulder carries a load. The term names the bracing arrangement, so it pairs with what is being supported, as in the shouldering of a beam or of an arch. Keep it apart from the side flange, which is a shape and not a way of carrying load.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   In roofing, the treatment of slates in which each tile's top edge is rounded and raised.

   The shouldering on the reclaimed slates was worn smooth with age.

   Traditional slating calls for precise shouldering along each tile's top edge.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A flanged portion of an object, similar to a lip but located on the side rather than the rim.

   The machinist filed a clean shouldering along the edge of the part.

   The vase had a pronounced shouldering where its wall curved outward.

   Similarflange, ridge

   Note

   A term of machines and fittings, met most often in the plural. The Repertory of Arts, Manufactures and Agriculture (1803) groups "shoulderings or wedgewise-securings, and abutments" among the parts that lock fitted pieces together. Bede's On the Temple describes shoulderings set outside wheels to keep them from slipping off their axles. Think of a step or ledge that stops one part from sliding past another.

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