entry
shoulder
/ˈʃoʊldər/Upper-body joint connecting the arm and trunk
From O.English, from West Germanic shoulder (Shoulder or upper arm-and-trunk region).
from Old English sculdor "shoulder of a person,"
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English schuldre, sholder, shulder, schulder
Word Ancestry
from Old English sculdor "shoulder of a person,"
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English schuldre, sholder, shulder, schulder
Long before a shoulder carried responsibility, it was simply the sturdy place where an arm met a body: Old English speakers called it sċuldor. The word traveled through Middle English in a small crowd of spellings—schuldre, sholder, shulder, and schulder—before settling into its modern form. Its deeper West Germanic ancestry is uncertain, though scholars have suggested a connection with the ancient word behind “shield,” which would make a shoulder sound like a built-in piece of armor. English then made the anatomy work overtime: by 1933 a road had a “shoulder,” soldiers stood “shoulder-to-shoulder” by the 1580s, and people began crying on someone’s shoulder in the figurative sense by 1935. So when you shoulder a burden, you are using an old body part as a metaphorical load-bearing beam—an anatomical joint promoted to emotional infrastructure.
The Story
Long before a shoulder carried responsibility, it was simply the sturdy place where an arm met a body: Old English speakers called it sċuldor. The word traveled through Middle English in a small crowd of spellings—schuldre, sholder, shulder, and schulder—before settling into its modern form. Its deeper West Germanic ancestry is uncertain, though scholars have suggested a connection with the ancient word behind “shield,” which would make a shoulder sound like a built-in piece of armor. English then made the anatomy work overtime: by 1933 a road had a “shoulder,” soldiers stood “shoulder-to-shoulder” by the 1580s, and people began crying on someone’s shoulder in the figurative sense by 1935. So when you shoulder a burden, you are using an old body part as a metaphorical load-bearing beam—an anatomical joint promoted to emotional infrastructure.
Modern Usage
In an Irish phrase, a 350-milliliter bottle of spirits; a low-confidence school-specific use also means a sex object
Notable References
- Urban Dictionary entries
Kin & Kindred
From 'shoulder'·Shoulder or upper arm-and-trunk region
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia
Wiktionary