Word.ws English Dictionary

shape-ups

shape-ups is the plural of shape-up.

Meaning of shape-up

Noun

shape-up (plural shape-ups)

  1. Gathering of workers to be picked for a job.
    • But if he is absent at the shape-up – when the boss stevedore blows his whistle and the men line up in a semi-circle outside the pier to be picked – another man gets his place for the time being, and it may be that he will miss the ship entirely.1914 July, W.M. Houghton, “The Longshoreman's Life is Short but Seldom Merry”, in Temperance: A Monthly Journal of the Church Temperance Society, volume 6, number 11, page 14
  2. Activity to get someone or something back into shape.
    • Shower shape-ups have two advantages.1990, The New Complete Medical and Health Encyclopedia, page 1147
  3. Hairstyle
    • I noticed my shape-ups weren't as nice as some of my friends from the city.2005, Spiro Milas, December 23, page 11

Questions about shape-ups

What is shape-ups the plural of?
Shape-ups is the plural of shape-up.

Words near shape-ups in the dictionary

  1. shape-shifter
  2. shape-shifters
  3. shape-shifting
  4. shape-shifts
  5. shape-up
  6. shape-ups
  7. shapeability
  8. shapeable
  9. shapechange
  10. shapechanged
  11. shapechanger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shape-ups (page history and authors); shape-up (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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Cite this entry: “shape-ups.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shape-ups. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.