Word.ws English Dictionary

bookshelf

/ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/

bookshelf noun: a shelf or shelves for storing books for easy visual reference.

bookshelf: a shelf or shelves for storing books for easy visual reference
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bookshelf (plural bookshelves)

  1. A shelf or shelves for storing books for easy visual reference.
    • Another, with the bump of order unnaturally developed, had his folios and quartos all reduced, in binding, to one size, so that they might look even on his bookshelves.1902, William Blades, The Enemies of Books, 2nd edition, page 102

bookshelf meaning in Tamil, Arabic, Indonesian and Thai

bookshelf in Tamil

புத்தகத் தட்டு

bookshelf in Arabic

shelf for storing books
رَفّ كُتُب raff kutub, رَفُّ الْكُتُب raffu l-kutub

bookshelf in Indonesian

shelf for storing books
rak buku

bookshelf in Thai

shelf for storing books
ชั้นวางหนังสือ chán-waang-nǎng-sʉ̌ʉ, ชั้นหนังสือ chán-nǎng-sʉ̌ʉ, หิ้งหนังสือ hîng-nǎng-sʉ̌ʉ
More languagesFewer languages
bookshelf in Vietnamese
giá sách, kệ sách

Examples of bookshelf in a sentence

  • Since he bought the book, it's just been sitting on the bookshelf and gathering dust.
  • There was just a bed, a wardrobe and some bookshelves.
  • The professor pulled a dusty old tome from the bookshelf.

All 18 example sentences with bookshelf

Forms of bookshelf

pluralbookshelves

Plural of bookshelf: bookshelves

Origin of bookshelf

From book + shelf.

Words formed from bookshelf

Questions about bookshelf

What does bookshelf mean?
Bookshelf means a shelf or shelves for storing books for easy visual reference.
What is bookshelf in Tamil?
Bookshelf in Tamil is புத்தகத் தட்டு. See Bookshelf meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is bookshelf?
Bookshelf is a noun.
How do you pronounce bookshelf?
Bookshelf is pronounced /ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/.
What is the plural of bookshelf?
The plural of bookshelf is bookshelves.

Words near bookshelf in the dictionary

  1. bookseller
  2. booksellerish
  3. booksellers
  4. bookselling
  5. booksful
  6. bookshelf
  7. bookshelf wealth
  8. bookshelve
  9. bookshelved
  10. bookshelver
  11. bookshelvers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bookshelf (page history and authors); bookshelf (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-bookshelf.wav.

Cite this entry: “bookshelf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bookshelf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.