bookshelf

UK/ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/US/ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/

nounA2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,664 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: bookshelves

A bookshelf is the piece of furniture your books stand in rows on. One board, or several in a frame.

Strictly a bookshelf is a single shelf and a bookcase is the whole thing, though almost nobody keeps the distinction. The plural is bookshelves. It has become a way of describing a person, since what somebody keeps on their bookshelf is treated as evidence about them, and the bookshelf behind a head in a video call has been analysed more than any furniture deserves.

Definitions of bookshelf

1nounbookshelfA shelf or set of shelves for holding books.A2+
“The bookshelf sagged in the middle.”

Also accepted in games: bookcase

Where it comes from

From book + shelf.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Around the House, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 5 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

bookshelf in the wild

TwixT is a two-player strategy board game, an early entrant in the 1960s 3M bookshelf game series.
TwixT
Special editions of books are often slipcased for a stylish appearance when placed on a bookshelf.
Slipcase
A bookcase also called a bookshelf, is a piece of furniture with horizontal shelves, often in a cabinet, used to store books or other printed materials.
Bookcase
A small bookshelf may also stand on some other piece of furniture, such as a desk or chest.
Bookcase
The 3M bookshelf game series is a set of strategy and economic games published in the 1960s and early 1970s by 3M Corporation.
3M bookshelf game series

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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