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

Despite the fact that the first massive wave of baby boomers were becoming teenagers—the age when most women began to purchase figure shapers— girdle sales started to fall.

From Popular-Science

As a biographer who has covered the shapers of technological revolutions, I see in Musk many of the traits of earlier innovators.

From Time

Harry Knight, coaching director at surf coaching resort Surf Simply, told me a story about the famed surfer and board shaper Donald Takayama.

From Popular-Science

Abraham Lincoln was, by any measure, a great communicator and a skillful shaper of public opinion.

From The Daily Beast

Thus for more than half a century Mr. Tilden was a shaper and a maker of American history.

From Project Gutenberg

Shapster is a feminine form of Shapper or Shaper—one who shaped or cut out cloths for garments.

From Project Gutenberg

First did He shape for the children of men Heaven for a roof, the holy Shaper.

From Project Gutenberg

Before their eyes he turned out an irrigation pump on an automatic shaper.

From Project Gutenberg

Transcendent shapeless shaper and essential beauty is supreme, vi.

From Project Gutenberg