shaper

[shey-per]

noun

1. a person or thing that shapes.

2. a machine tool for forming flat surfaces, consisting of a frame, usually horizontal, on which the work is held while a cutting tool moves along it with a reciprocating motion.

3. (in woodworking) a stationary power tool driving a vertical spindle to which cutters are locked, used in joinery and for forming decorative edges.

Word History and Origins

Origin of shaper¹

Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; shape, -er ¹

Example Sentences

"Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy," he said.

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In Cohen-Solal’s account, French xenophobia, primal and entrenched, was a major shaper of Picasso’s biography, and it’s her tracing of it that makes her book distinctive.

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“They are the shapers of their own character. They don’t get dictated what it should be. They fill in what it should be for them.”

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Avoiding tight clothes including belts and shapers also can improve how you feel.

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Urgent and personal, “Complicities” solidifies D’Erasmo’s reputation not just as a skilled shaper of disparate fictional worlds and beings, but as a fierce investigator of how it may feel to live inside them.

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