1A place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger.

1. 1.1 A place providing food and accommodations for the homeless.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • Charity groups which offer food and shelters for the homeless are expecting an increase in families asking for help.
   • Unless we work for justice through social change, the need at food banks, homeless shelters, and low-income medical clinics will only increase.
   • Sonia returns home after delivering a child to find that Bruno has sublet their apartment, forcing the trio into homeless shelters.
   • Many young people will give part of their holiday to volunteer at homeless shelters and food pantries.
   • Those things were reserved for organizations that had been approved by the food bank, mainly homeless shelters and senior centers.
   • I suppose I should make my apartment a homeless shelter?
   • With homeless shelters already at over-capacity, organizers are demanding extra spaces to get people off the streets this winter.
   • In between her job, she volunteered at homeless shelters and organized several food drives.
   • VIP participants have volunteered at a homeless shelter, a food bank or the Red Cross.
   • We have to think in terms of creating large shelters where the homeless can live in relative comfort, do whatever work they are physically capable of and feel no need to go back to the streets.
   • The homeless are streaming into shelters like this one where I am.
   • She wants to help organize the food drive for the homeless shelter.
   • Today senior governments limit their social housing to funding shelters for homeless people.
   • But the couple doesn't give to homeless shelters and food banks, saying the poor should raise themselves out of poverty.
   • Later he was an energy trader for Goldman Sachs, he delivered food to homeless shelters, and he helped a friend promote his new restaurant.
   • Sending them to shelters for the homeless is a last resort.
   • There is never a visit to the soup kitchens or the homeless shelters where the down-and-out Irish will spend St. Patrick's Night.
   • Claudia was sweet, volunteering at homeless shelters during big holidays, serving food to the poor.
   • Not long ago the community-service committee conducted a food drive for Boston's homeless shelters.
   • The youth also cleaned and labeled cans at a food bank, sorted donated clothes at a homeless shelter and worked with a farmer who sold produce in the church's parking lot.
2. 1.2 An animal sanctuary.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • Or they find an animal shelter and leave the dog or cat there amongst hundreds of suffering diseased animals.
   • In no time flat the available walls were full of public notices, goods and services for sale, community event posters and news from the animal shelter.
   • He was an abused dog that Stan rescued from an animal shelter.
   • Often, veterinarians and local animal shelters can put you in contact with therapy dog groups.
   • Men were primarily responsible for herding animals, hunting, slaughtering animals, and maintaining animal shelters.
   • Even the Red Cross, which has never allowed animals in its shelters due to health and sanitation concerns, is changing its policies.
   • With all the animals in shelters waiting to be adopted with some to be euthenized, you should really consider adopting.
   • I've always had good luck adopting animals from shelters.
   • Overcrowded animal shelters even call Stephanie for help.
   • Many animal shelters need volunteers to walk their dogs.
   • All around you are animal shelters, soup kitchens and nursing homes that need your help.
   • People who find a poor critter are encouraged to take them to their local shelter or animal control facility so owners can be reunited with their pets.
   • The week after she died, we received a phone call to transport the animals to the shelter.
   • Between 6 million and 8 million dogs and cats enter animal shelters across the United States each year.
   • If money isn't an issue, then another option is to volunteer at places like hospitals/health care facilities and animal shelters.
   • Volunteer at an animal shelter or library, start a club with your friends, raise money for the poor.
   • Some of these were dwellings but others were probably stores or animal shelters.
   • Animal shelters provide a valuable service to the community that they serve by keeping the streets as free of stray animals as possible.
   • The target agencies proposed for using animals as resources are the organizations that train and place animals for therapy or service and animal shelters.
   • Over a period of a week, the rabbits were taken from the home and checked over by vets before being taken to various animal shelters for rehoming.

   Synonyms

   sanctuary, place of shelter, refuge, accommodation, housing, home, place of safety, haven, safe haven, sanctum, safe house
3. 1.3 A shielded or safe condition; protection.
   he hung back in the shelter of a rock

   you're welcome to take shelter from the storm

   Example sentencesExamples

   • He said that people living in the high-risk areas should be forewarned about natural disasters so that they could evacuate their homes and take shelter well in time.
   • But at least while they learn to adjust to it they can be provided safe shelter and friendship.
   • It only seems a matter of time before Bob and Charlotte cross paths and take shelter in each other's company.
   • We are sitting in the shelter of a temporary marquee - or mock Bedouin tent - with the sandy expanse of the desert around us.
   • Should one develop overhead take shelter until it dissipates.
   • Police cars drove at speed through the streets, their loudspeakers ordering pedestrians to take shelter or hide under cover of tall buildings.
   • Do not mow weedy sites or dismantle woodpiles, which provide them safe shelter in the off-season.
   • Far too frequently their proponents take shelter behind a sort of eclectic individualism.
   • There are also trees and shrubs where mosquitoes take shelter and they should be regularly sprayed with insecticides.
   • My parents asked me to take shelter somewhere else for a day.
   • The site claims, in the event of a detonation, you should take shelter, gain distance and minimize your exposure time.
   • With many hundreds of school buses available, the city chose to provide safe shelter for those who did not or could not leave town in the Super Dome.
   • They can also take shelter here if there is a sudden downpour.
   • Another 1.3 percent fell into the category of dilapidated units, defined as failing to provide safe and adequate shelter.
   • Due to adverse weather conditions the ship may take shelter in ports in Spain, Portugal or Madeira on her journey to Tenerife, according to a spokesperson for the company.
   • He ran to a neighbour's home to take shelter in a crawl space.
   • Then we'd take shelter under the cover of his porch and watch it rain and Deca would come in when we were almost dry and hug us so we'd be wet again.
   • Two Canadian Geese land, honking, and take shelter under a willow tree whose tendrils flick at the water with the breeze.
   • As we waited out the weather under the shelter of the porch roof he began talking.
   • Even strays take shelter from the enervating heat.

   Synonyms

   protection, shield, cover, a roof, screen, shade

1Protect or shield from something harmful, especially bad weather.

1. 1.1no object, with adverbial of place Find refuge or take cover from bad weather or danger.
   people were sheltering under store canopies and trees

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Miri and the girls had to cover their faces to shelter from the heat.
   • A central exploration of these situations has been the creation of nomadic habitations, which are designed to be worn, slept, stored and sheltered in.
   • The people at the MCA, on the other hand, come in to shelter from the weather or when the guys who juggle kittens and chain saws take a break.
   • The shops on the riverside suddenly seemed a dangerous place to shelter from the deluge, which had started with a cloudburst about 3 pm on Monday afternoon.
   • The vessel was still sheltering from the adverse weather on Wednesday.
   • There were shoals of grunt and goatfish sheltering in the shadow of our boat.
   • You dug up the heart of the mystery of the world, I think, salvaging the last green remnants sheltering in the shadow of my grave.
   • She and her four children are sheltering under sticks covered with cloth.
   • He had considered sheltering behind a building and waiting for the danger to pass but he decided not to.
   • During a shower of rain I shelter under a canopy.
   • There is nothing like the instant gratification of jumping in to find, as the bubbles clear, that a gargantuan whale shark is sheltering in the shadow of your boat, or a posse of eagle rays is gliding by.
   • There are eight hides - four with wheelchair access - all with fantastic views and a good place to shelter if the weather gets bad.
   • There, sheltering in huts of twigs and leaves covered by plastic sheeting, 90,000 people are crammed into the camp.
   • Providing you can catch the driver's attention, you can shelter from the weather on the other side of the road.
   • Over the last few days, the governments have promised to co-operate and hand over any suspects sheltering within their borders.
   • Waterford is also an effective port of refuge for Irish and foreign trawlers to shelter from bad weather, which I saw for myself when in the port.
   • In 1983 rampaging mobs forced us to shelter in a refugee camp.
   • Missionaries have warned of the danger of epidemics as the island's inhabitants are still sheltering in caves and have very little food, fresh water or medical supplies.
   • There was one cafe under the arches where you could go and shelter from the weather.
   • The refugees first sheltered in the caves that riddle the steep limestone hill, later building houses around them.

   Synonyms

   take shelter, take refuge, seek protection, seek refuge, seek sanctuary, take cover
2. 1.2 Prevent (someone) from having to do or face something difficult or unpleasant.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • No evidence has emerged of any coordinated network sheltering these people, and all charity and aid organisations are careful to deny supporting such efforts.
   • My dad sheltered me from all that; he hid any trouble from me and coming home was a retreat from the black world of the B52s into a safe blanket-lined den.
   • Even if you are sheltered from the demonstrations, read the British newspapers - the whole raucous range of them.
   • Maybe some parents should spend less time sheltering their kids from sex and nudity and more time teaching kids to be nicer individuals.
   • She would shelter me from all the things that media people would write about her, some of which was totally untrue.
   • You're too young to understand and you're sheltered from it until you're put on the front lines and you realise that you're surrounded on all sides by people who hate you.
   • Your point about not sheltering kids makes sense, provided you are talking about kids of a certain age.
   • But I think in Australia at the time, people were sheltered from that view, and hadn't evolved particularly.
   • This, coupled with leading an isolated and sheltered life, had made it difficult for him to form personal relationships.
   • What they were actually doing was sheltering him from reality.
   • Give your public more credit and stop sheltering us from that ooh-so-wicked world.
   • The people also have a right to know about the people sheltering a wanted person.
   • And in the early days of ‘Europe’, this collection of awarenesses sheltered me from the new cause.
   • Unfortunately, the vast majority of South Asian parents are unable to see it from this perspective and spend a great deal of time and energy sheltering their children, telling them who they can and cannot be with.
   • While there are many practical problems involved in sheltering people from a different culture, we also know the rewards that would flow.

   Synonyms

   secluded, withdrawn, isolated, protected, immune, cloistered, unworldly, sequestered, retired, reclusive
3. 1.3 Protect (income) from taxation.
   only your rental income can be sheltered

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Wealthy families who use trusts to shelter assets from tax will have to give more to the taxman.
   • Limited partnerships are structured as corporations, so your liability is limited, but you can't use losses to shelter income.
   • However, there is bad news for wealthy families who use trusts to shelter assets from tax.
   • Over time, this would shelter most investment income from taxation, leaving taxes mainly on wage-and-salary income.
   • Smart lawyers sheltered the family fortune so well that it still showers funds on successive generations.
   • Real estate tax breaks may shelter that income and perhaps even provide a paper loss to offset other gains.
   • The real issue is whether such a transaction should be sheltered from taxation.
   • Such losses cannot be used to shelter non-rental income, which would include any capital gain that you may make on the sale of this apartment.
   • So, assuming that you do have rental income to shelter, how can you go about choosing an investment property that will work for you?
   • If this is taken as given, then it becomes more attractive to extract income in a form that can be easily sheltered.
   • Rental income in France is taxable, but can be substantially sheltered by the cost of borrowing.
   • If you sell the house at the end of the period, the profits are sheltered from taxes, but the stocks are subject to capital gains taxes.
   • After that, you can decide how much you're willing to commit to each and whether you want to shelter your income and gains from the taxman.
   • The director can shelter the income by maximising his employee pension contributions to the 15% limit of his gross salary.
   • The first of these follows the effect of high tax rates on the incentive to generate taxable income or to shelter income by legitimate means - tax avoidance.
   • Non-exempt letting income can be sheltered by purchasing a rental property in a renewal incentive area.
   • While the housing allowance is an excellent tax benefit, it only shelters income tax, not social security tax.
   • That the corporate tax serves as a backstop against sheltering income is probably the strongest reason today for keeping the tax.
   • The taxpayer is exempt from late-payment penalties or fines for having sheltered income by moving cash out of the country.
   • Leaving property to a UK-domiciled spouse can shelter it from inheritance tax.