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on the shelf
Inactive, not employed, as in With mandatory retirement at 65, many useful employees are put on the shelf . [Second half of 1500s]
In a state of disuse, as in We'll have to put her proposal on the shelf until we have more funds . [Late 1800s]
Without prospects of marriage. For example, After she broke her third engagement, her parents were sure she'd be on the shelf . This usage is always said of a woman and today considered offensive. It is probably obsolescent. [Early 1800s] All these usages allude to an article left on the shelf of a store, bookcase, or the like.
Example Sentences
When it comes to food, higher energy costs can lead to higher prices on the shelf in many ways.
A moment that killed me was at the snow globe museum when you asked about that life-size doll on the shelf, and the woman said it’s her father.
“The president's indiscriminate tariff policy is going to hit prices for imported foods as well as for foods produced domestically that compete with foreign foods. Shoppers should expect that some foods they are used to won't be available on the shelf at any price.”
Representing the parents, Eric Baxter, an attorney for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, stressed they “were not objecting to books being on the shelf or in the library. No student has a right to tell the school which books to choose,” he said.
Aunt Cecelia’s ashes used to be over there, in a wooden box on the shelf.
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