Word.ws English Dictionary

shelf-worn

shelf-worn adjective: of a book etc.: exhibiting superficial damage from having been repeatedly removed from and replaced on a shelf.

Adjective

shelf-worn (comparative more shelf-worn, superlative most shelf-worn)

  1. Of a book etc.: exhibiting superficial damage from having been repeatedly removed from and replaced on a shelf.

Forms of shelf-worn

comparativemore shelf-worn
superlativemost shelf-worn

Questions about shelf-worn

What does shelf-worn mean?
Shelf-worn means of a book etc.: exhibiting superficial damage from having been repeatedly removed from and replaced on a shelf.
What part of speech is shelf-worn?
Shelf-worn is an adjective.

Words near shelf-worn in the dictionary

  1. shelf-stable
  2. shelf-talker
  3. shelf-talkers
  4. shelf-wobbler
  5. shelf-wobblers
  6. shelf-worn
  7. shelfback
  8. shelfbacks
  9. shelfbreak
  10. shelfbreaks
  11. shelfed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shelf-worn (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: “shelf-worn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shelf-worn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.