To form or create; especially, to mold or make into a particular form; to give proper form or figure to.
To adapt to a purpose; to regulate; to adjust; to direct; as, to shape the course of a vessel.
To imagine; to conceive; to call forth (ideas).
To design; to prepare; to plan; to arrange.
To suit; to be adjusted or conformable.
Character or construction of a thing as determining its external appearance; outward aspect; make; figure; form; guise; as, the shape of a tree; the shape of the head; an elegant shape.
That which has form or figure; a figure; an appearance; a being.
A model; a pattern; a mold.
Form of embodiment, as in words; form, as of thought or conception; concrete embodiment or example, as of some quality.
Dress for disguise; guise.
A rolled or hammered piece, as a bar, beam, angle iron, etc., having a cross section different from merchant bar.
That branch of biology which deals with the structure of animals and plants, treating of the forms of organs and describing their varieties, homologies, and metamorphoses. See Tectology, and Promorphology.
The form and structure of an organism.
The branch of linguistics which studies the patterns by which words are formed from other words, including inflection, compounding, and derivation.
The study of the patterns of inflection of words or word classes in any given language; the study of the patterns in which morphemes combine to form words, and the rules for combination; morphemics; as, the morphology of Spanish verbs; also, the inflection patterns themselves.
