Shelfback

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The vertical surface forming the back of a shelf.

    "She came home later that day from Mrs. Rafferty's with a blue platter, which she placed standing up against the shelfback in the linen closet."

  2. 2
    The spine of a book.

    "There was the man who collected any old volumes on etymology. There was a collector of books with gilded Victorian shelfbacks."

Example

More examples

"She came home later that day from Mrs. Rafferty's with a blue platter, which she placed standing up against the shelfback in the linen closet."

Etymology

From shelf + back.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.