Word.ws English Dictionary

sheld

sheld is the obsolete spelling of shield.

Meaning of shield

Noun

shield (plural shields)

  1. A broad piece of defensive armor, held in hand, formerly in general use in war, for the protection of the body.
    • Knock go and come; God's vassals drop and die; And sword and shield, In bloody field, Doth win immortal fame.1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, act III, scene II, line 8
  2. (figuratively) One who protects or defends.
    • Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.1611, The Holy Bible, King James Version edition, Genesis 15:1
  3. A featherless, flat, fleshy protuberance on the head; a frontal shield.
  4. A flattish patch of iridescent feathers.
  5. A heavily hardened, protective plate on an insect's exoskeleton that covers part of its body.
  6. In lichens, a hardened cup or disk surrounded by a rim and containing the fructification, or asci.

See all 23 meanings of shield

Forms of sheld

pluralshelds

Words formed from sheld

Questions about sheld

What is sheld the obsolete spelling of?
Sheld is the obsolete spelling of shield.

Words near sheld in the dictionary

  1. Shelby knot
  2. Shelby knots
  3. Shelbyville
  4. Shelbyvillian
  5. Shelbyvillians
  6. sheld
  7. sheldaple
  8. sheldaples
  9. sheldduck
  10. sheldducks
  11. Shelden

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sheld (page history and authors); shield (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: “sheld.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sheld. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.