shaper

[ shey-per ]

noun

1. a person or thing that shapes.
2. a machine tool for forming flat surfaces, consisting of a frame, usually horizontal, on which the work is held while a cutting tool moves along it with a reciprocating motion. Compare planer ( def 2 ).
3. (in woodworking) a stationary power tool driving a vertical spindle to which cutters are locked, used in joinery and for forming decorative edges.

Word History and Origins

Origin of shaper¹

Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; shape, -er ¹

Example Sentences

In Cohen-Solal’s account, French xenophobia, primal and entrenched, was a major shaper of Picasso’s biography, and it’s her tracing of it that makes her book distinctive.

From New York Times

“They are the shapers of their own character. They don’t get dictated what it should be. They fill in what it should be for them.”

From Los Angeles Times

Avoiding tight clothes including belts and shapers also can improve how you feel.

From Washington Post

Urgent and personal, “Complicities” solidifies D’Erasmo’s reputation not just as a skilled shaper of disparate fictional worlds and beings, but as a fierce investigator of how it may feel to live inside them.

From Washington Post

Her son King Charles III, at 73, has little chance of matching the queen’s power as a shaper of global opinion — a task she took on at a younger age, in a different time.

From New York Times