Shelven

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Having been placed on a shelf or stored away out of sight ; having been set aside and delayed without a firm date for resuming
2. Positioned on a rack or ledge for keeping ; deferred and left unattended for an indefinite period of time
3. Stored on a ledge or in a cupboard for later use ; postponed or dropped from active consideration with no set plan to revisit it

Etymology: "Shelven" is the past participle of "shelve," and its history runs through a verb that began as a noun for a plank. Old English "scylf" meant a ledge or projecting rock, and from it came the verb "scylfan," meaning to place something on a ledge. Over the centuries the shelf sense of the noun narrowed to a flat board fixed to a wall or frame, and the verb followed it, while "shelve" also picked up a sense of sloping, as in a shelving beach. The older past participle "shelven" survived alongside "shelved," which became the standard form in modern English. "Shelven" still appears in some older writing and poetry, where it carries the same meaning as "placed on a shelf," and in the adjective sense it describes something set aside or stored away. The modern adjectival use of "shelved" to mean postponed or put aside indefinitely grew out of the same literal image of an object placed on a shelf.

Synonyms: postponed, deferred, delayed, tabled, shelved

Antonyms: implemented, activated, resumed, adopted