shaper

Noun

shaper (plural shapers)

1. (agent) Any agent that shapes (something), whether literally or figuratively.
   • one's birth is a shaper of one's fortunes
   • Considered merely as works of art, these products of the Greek imagination [i.e., Greek tragedies] satisfy our highest conception of form. […] The secret of those old shapers died with them; their wand is broken, their book sunk deeper than ever plummet sounded.1876, James Russell Lowell, “Dante”, in Among My Books. Second Series., Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 98
   1. (agent) A person who designs and builds surfboards.
   2. (agent) A machine tool in which a single-point cutting tool mounted on a reciprocating ram is traversed across the workpiece linearly. Shapers can generate various shapes, but were most especially employed in generating flat surfaces and keyways. The shaper is nowadays obsolescent, most of its applications being served by milling machines.