Other forms: shadows, shadowed, shadowing
A shadow is the dark shape a thing makes when it stands in the way of the light. Step into the sun and yours lies on the pavement in front of you — thin and stretched out in the evening, a squat blob at noon, and always joined to your feet.
Shadow is the darkness itself as well, the patch the light does not reach: the lane was in shadow by four. Keep it apart from shade, which is the cool place you sit under a tree — a shadow has a shape, shade is somewhere to be. As a verb, to shadow someone is to follow them closely and quietly, which is what a detective does, and to shadow a colleague is to spend a day at their elbow learning the job. Then comes the figurative crowd: bad news casts a shadow over a wedding, a man who has been ill is a shadow of his former self, and something certain is true without a shadow of a doubt. In British politics the shadow cabinet is the opposition's copy of the real one, minister for minister.
1nounshadowThe dark shape made when something blocks the light.~60%
“The tree threw a long shadow across the lawn.”
synonyms: silhouette, outline
2noundarknessDarkness caused by something standing between a place and the light.~28%
“The narrow street was in shadow all afternoon.”
3verbfollowTo follow someone closely and secretly.~9%
“Two officers shadowed him through the market.”
4nounfaintestThe faintest trace of something.~3%
“There is not a shadow of doubt about it.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 163 sentences found in the wild and placed 35 of them on a sense (128 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
shadow is a dark shape.
Shadow and shade are one Old English word split in two. Sċeadu meant shadow, shade, darkness — and protection, the thing you stand behind. Shadow grew out of its longer form sċeaduwe and drifted off to mean the shape, leaving shade to mean the place. Underneath both sits an ancient root that meant nothing more than darkness.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)ḱeh₃- — darkness
Proto-Germanic
*skaduz — shade, shadow
Proto-West Germanic
*skadu
Old English
sċeaduwe
Middle English
schadowe
English, today
shadow
Built from
From Middle English schadowe, schadewe, schadwe (also schade > shade), from Old English sċeaduwe, sċeadwe, oblique form of sċeadu (“shadow, shade; darkness; protection”), from Proto-West Germanic skadu, from Proto-Germanic skaduz (“shade, shadow”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)ḱeh₃- (“darkness”). a doublet of shade. 2 Cognate with Scots shedda (“shadow”), stq Skaad, Skade (“shade, shadow”), West Frisian skaad, skâd (“shade, shadow”), gmw-cfr and li Schatte (“shadow”), Dutch schade, schaduw (“shadow”), German Schatten (“shade, shadow”), German Low German Scharr, Scharre (“shade, shadow”), lb Schiet (“shade, shadow”), wym siota (“shadow”), Yiddish שאָטן (“shadow”), Faroese skadda (“thick wet mountain fog”), Icelandic skodda, skoddi (“shadow”), Norwegian Bokmål skodde (“fog, mist”), Norwegian Nynorsk skodde, skåddj, skåidd (“fog; ice fog”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌳𐌿𐍃 (“shadow”); also Breton skeud (“shadow; reflection; ghost”), kw skeus (“shadow; reflection”), Irish scáth (“shadow”), gv scaa, skæ (“shield; shade, shadow”), Scottish Gaelic sgàth (“shade, shadow”), Latin obscurus (“dark, dusky, shadowy”), Ancient Greek σκότος (“darkness, gloom”) (whence English scoto-), be сівы́ (“grey”), Czech and Slovak sivý (“grey”), mk осој (“shady place”), Polish siwy (“grey”), Russian си́вый (“grey”), Serbo-Croatian сив, siv (“grey”), Slovene osoja (“shady place”), Ukrainian си́вий (“grey”), Armenian սեաւ, սեւ (“black”), os сау (“black”), Persian سه, سیه, سیاه (“black”), Sanskrit श्याम (“black”), श्याव (“dark”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA