shed1
/ʃɛd
/- With judgment like that, would you trust any of these gentry to put a roof on your garden shed?
- Other features include two garden sheds with slated roofs, a tiled pergola, and low voltage ground lighting.
- It sits in piles by the side of the road, stacked in sods for drying before it is carted off in sacks to hearthsides and fuel sheds all over the region.
Synonyms
- The investigating officer said it appeared the fire had started from within one of the vehicles stored in the shed and then quickly spread.
- The court heard he went on a fire-starting spree over a five-year period after unsuccessfully applying to join the fire service, targeting houses, sheds and vehicles.
- The house, which comes complete with an attached garage, is set back from the road in mature gardens with shaped lawns, a paved sun patio, a pond, a lockable store, a shed and a greenhouse.
- Subdivisional fences and fences around buildings and sheds are referred to, and that appears to be the extent of it.
- More than half of all the antibiotics used in this country are used in the farms and in the poultry sheds and all the rest of it, now that's obscene for a start.
Origin
Late 15th century: apparently a variant of the noun shade.
water from Old English:
The people living around the Black Sea more than 5 000 years ago had a word for water. We do not know exactly what it was, but it was probably the source for the words used for ‘water’ in many European languages, past and present. In Old English it was wæter. The Greek was hudōr, the source of words like hydraulic (mid 17th century) and hydrotherapy (late 19th century). The same root led to the formation of Latin unda ‘wave’, as in inundate (late 18th century), abound (Middle English) (from Latin abundare ‘overflow’), and undulate (mid 17th century), Russian voda (the source of vodka), German Wasser, and the English words wet (Old English) and otter (Old English). Of the first water means ‘unsurpassed’. The three highest grades into which diamonds or pearls could be classified used to be called waters, but only first water, the top one, is found today, describing a completely flawless gem. An equivalent term is found in many European languages, and all are thought to come from the Arabic word for water, mā, which also meant ‘shine or splendour’, presumably from the appearance of very pure water. People and things other than gems began to be described as of the first water in the 1820s. Nowadays the phrase is rarely used as a compliment: in a letter written in 1950, P.G. Wodehouse commented disparagingly on J. M. Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton: ‘I remember being entranced with it in 1904 or whenever it was, but now it seems like a turkey of the first water.’ If you study a duck shaking its wings after diving for food you will see the point of water off a duck's back, used since the 1820s of a potentially hurtful remark that has no apparent effect. The water forms into beads and simply slides off the bird's waterproof feathers, leaving the duck dry. Water under the bridge refers to events that are in the past and should no longer to be regarded as important. Similar phrases are recorded since the beginning of the 20th century. A North American variant is water over the dam. The first uses of waterlogged, in the late 18th century, referred to ships that were so flooded with water that they became heavy and unmanageable, and no better than a log floating in the sea. A watershed, a ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers or seas, has nothing to do with garden sheds but means ‘ridge of high ground’ and is connected with shed (Old English) meaning ‘discard’.
Rhymes
shed2
/ʃɛd/- When a horwath tree shed its leaves, the leaves fell to the ground, and were extremely soft and fluffy.
- Most of the deciduous trees have shed their leaves by mid-December.
- The trees had shed their leaves, leaving vast sheets of different colors covering the once bright green grasses.
- Each time the caterpillar grows bigger, it sheds its skin in a process called molting.
- The male crabs shed their shells twice a year, in autumn and spring.
Synonyms
- Cheap brushes are a huge headache mainly because they shed hair and lose their shape quicker than quality brushes.
- My dog is shedding more hair than usual.
- She shed her clothes and pulled on the catsuit.
- I shed my clothes and pull on black jeans, a black shirt and black shoes and quickly tied my hair back with a black hair tie.
- I shed the clothes I was wearing, and pulled on the new outfit.
Synonyms
- When it's oriented up, the boards will shed water and will tend to flatten over time.
- Because they were made of wool, they shed water, though eventually they'd get wet.
- Marr acknowledges that, in shedding pivotal players and considerable sums from both the playing budget and debt, his club must also shed expectations.
- When asked whether the Chilean had shed the excess pounds he gained after his injury, he joked that all that worried him was the player's haircut.
- Governments should not be allowed to shed this responsibility by appealing for private donations.
Synonyms
- After coffee, the skies clear and the clouds respectfully lift to reveal the soft, peach-hued evening light shedding its fading rays on his face.
- It was dark again, save for Callie, who continued shedding her halo of light.
- The fragile wafer of February sun was directly overhead, shedding watery light but no warmth.
Synonyms
- A lorry shed a cargo of paper across the Bristol Road on Saturday morning causing four hours of traffic gridlock in Chippenham.
- A lorry shed its load across Great Western Way this morning, causing long delays for commuters joining junction 16 of the M4.
- The lorry shed its load of metal shards in the accident in Doncaster Road at Hooton Roberts, near Rotherham, disrupting rush hour traffic.
Synonyms
Phrases
shed (someone's) blood
shed light on
shed tears
Origin
Old English sc(e)ādan 'separate out (one selected group), divide', also 'scatter', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German scheiden. Compare with sheath.