"shapeup" meaning in English

See shapeup in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-shapeup.ogg Forms: shapeups [plural], shape-up [alternative]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} shapeup (plural shapeups)
  1. (slang) a gathering of labourers, where employers hire them for day jobs. Tags: slang
    Sense id: en-shapeup-en-noun-1-WvSXEm Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 2 15 38 4 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 38 2 18 37 4 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 39 2 18 39 2
  2. (by extension) A regular meeting by a criminal organization in which jobs are assigned. Tags: broadly
    Sense id: en-shapeup-en-noun-2dKXQp3s
  3. A session or routine in which someone or something is repaired or put into better shape.
    Sense id: en-shapeup-en-noun-MA3DG06F Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 2 15 38 4 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 38 2 18 37 4 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 39 2 18 39 2
  4. A hairstyle that involves cutting along the natural hairline to straighten it.
    Sense id: en-shapeup-en-noun-zPpGmTcK Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 2 15 38 4 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 38 2 18 37 4 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 39 2 18 39 2
  5. An overview or outline of the major layout and shape of something.
    Sense id: en-shapeup-en-noun-u5abJYE~

Inflected forms

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    {
      "form": "shapeups",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shape-up",
      "tags": [
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      ]
    }
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "shapeup (plural shapeups)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "40 2 15 38 4",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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            [
              210,
              217
            ],
            [
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              258
            ]
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          "ref": "1974, Earl Conrad, Club, page 125:",
          "text": "Even with all that prosperity there were bindle stiffs who didn't do so good: so he and the others dropped into a saloon, got a hundred bucks worth of small change, stepped back into the cab, drove over by the shapeup, that's what they said it was, a shapeup, and they threw money to the guys, laughed when they scrambled for the small change, niggers and wops, some poor yids, and some Americans too: they scrambled on the pier, scraping up a hundred bucks worth of nickels, dimes and pennies.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              39,
              47
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1982, Patricia Cayo Sexton, The New Nightingales, page 95:",
          "text": "Then I got work as a janitor. They had shapeups, like on the waterfront.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              185,
              193
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2006, David R. Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness:",
          "text": "From Henry James's \"look in\" on Italians, Jews, and others, to muckraking travelogues of immigrant neighborhoods, to serving as guinea pigs in the development of intelligence tests, to shapeups outside factories in pursuit of work, to inspections on entering the country, immigrants were repeatedly scrutinized, tried, examined, and ranked against other races.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              20,
              27
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2011, James T. Fisher, On the Irish Waterfront, page 94:",
          "text": "The equation of the shapeup with waterfront criminality , which eventually — with a very large assist from Pete Corridan — took hold in the public imagination, obscured a much more complex and variegated labor economy that was evolving throughout the port.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              29,
              36
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2020, Peter B. Doeringer, Michael J. Piore, Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis:",
          "text": "The company can institute a \"shapeup,” hiring each day from a gang of workers appearing at the gate a number equal to the number of its work stations.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "a gathering of labourers, where employers hire them for day jobs."
      ],
      "id": "en-shapeup-en-noun-1-WvSXEm",
      "links": [
        [
          "labourer",
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        ],
        [
          "employer",
          "employer"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) a gathering of labourers, where employers hire them for day jobs."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    },
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      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              44,
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            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2002, Gene Mustain, Jerry Capeci, Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti, page xiii:",
          "text": "Worse, he required his men to attend weekly shapeups at his social club on a busy street in lower Manhattan.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A regular meeting by a criminal organization in which jobs are assigned."
      ],
      "id": "en-shapeup-en-noun-2dKXQp3s",
      "links": [
        [
          "criminal",
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        ],
        [
          "organization",
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        ],
        [
          "job",
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(by extension) A regular meeting by a criminal organization in which jobs are assigned."
      ],
      "tags": [
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      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "40 2 15 38 4",
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          ],
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        },
        {
          "_dis": "38 2 18 37 4",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "39 2 18 39 2",
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              28,
              35
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1979, Bodywork & Painting, page 15:",
          "text": "Before we began our weekend shapeup, the car looked like this: scratches and dents, broken trim, and a finish that was strictly dullsville.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              25,
              33
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1996, R. Alan Fox, 500 Best USA Vacations, page 88:",
          "text": "Here are best bets, from shapeups with time for pampering to rugged outdoor fun .",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              92,
              100
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2019, Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath:",
          "text": "Finesse a new one out of brown girl sex, confessions in composition notebooks, and poolside shapeups.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A session or routine in which someone or something is repaired or put into better shape."
      ],
      "id": "en-shapeup-en-noun-MA3DG06F"
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "40 2 15 38 4",
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        },
        {
          "_dis": "38 2 18 37 4",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "39 2 18 39 2",
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              52,
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          ],
          "ref": "2013, Quincy T. Mills, Cutting Along the Color Line, page 239:",
          "text": "Even those who still came to the shop came only for shapeups.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              61,
              69
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2014, Michelle N. Gibbs, Zion:",
          "text": "His mom didn't do too bad of a job when she did give him the shapeups, but don't say that in Sam's shop because only men such as Sam and his crew can cut hair as good as them in that town.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              129,
              137
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2016, Ronald Lee Fleming, 4Th Street Playground: The Mecca:",
          "text": "Another former Mount Vernon resident, now living in the state of New Jersey, said he use to go to Modernistic Barber Shop to get shapeups.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A hairstyle that involves cutting along the natural hairline to straighten it."
      ],
      "id": "en-shapeup-en-noun-zPpGmTcK",
      "links": [
        [
          "hairstyle",
          "hairstyle"
        ],
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          "hairline",
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        ],
        [
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        ]
      ]
    },
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              43,
              50
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1990, Daniel Gonneau, Data Network Design Strategies, page 262:",
          "text": "Shapeup (SU) does a high-level outline, or shapeup, of a newspaper edition, including how many sections are in the edition, what the sections contain, and so on.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              223,
              230
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2006, Maciej J. Nawrocki, Mischa Dohler, Hamid Aghvami, Understanding UMTS Radio Network, page 98:",
          "text": "The method of estimation of a transmitter effective antenna height depends on the type of propagationpath (land, sea), the length for land paths (below or above 15 km) and on the availability of data concerning the terrain shapeup (for the paths shorter than 15 km).",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An overview or outline of the major layout and shape of something."
      ],
      "id": "en-shapeup-en-noun-u5abJYE~"
    }
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  "sounds": [
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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/e/e8/En-au-shapeup.ogg/En-au-shapeup.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/En-au-shapeup.ogg"
    }
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  "word": "shapeup"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English phrasal nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
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  "forms": [
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      "form": "shapeups",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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      "form": "shape-up",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              210,
              217
            ],
            [
              251,
              258
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1974, Earl Conrad, Club, page 125:",
          "text": "Even with all that prosperity there were bindle stiffs who didn't do so good: so he and the others dropped into a saloon, got a hundred bucks worth of small change, stepped back into the cab, drove over by the shapeup, that's what they said it was, a shapeup, and they threw money to the guys, laughed when they scrambled for the small change, niggers and wops, some poor yids, and some Americans too: they scrambled on the pier, scraping up a hundred bucks worth of nickels, dimes and pennies.",
          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              39,
              47
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1982, Patricia Cayo Sexton, The New Nightingales, page 95:",
          "text": "Then I got work as a janitor. They had shapeups, like on the waterfront.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              185,
              193
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2006, David R. Roediger, Working Toward Whiteness:",
          "text": "From Henry James's \"look in\" on Italians, Jews, and others, to muckraking travelogues of immigrant neighborhoods, to serving as guinea pigs in the development of intelligence tests, to shapeups outside factories in pursuit of work, to inspections on entering the country, immigrants were repeatedly scrutinized, tried, examined, and ranked against other races.",
          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              20,
              27
            ]
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          "ref": "2011, James T. Fisher, On the Irish Waterfront, page 94:",
          "text": "The equation of the shapeup with waterfront criminality , which eventually — with a very large assist from Pete Corridan — took hold in the public imagination, obscured a much more complex and variegated labor economy that was evolving throughout the port.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              29,
              36
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2020, Peter B. Doeringer, Michael J. Piore, Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis:",
          "text": "The company can institute a \"shapeup,” hiring each day from a gang of workers appearing at the gate a number equal to the number of its work stations.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "a gathering of labourers, where employers hire them for day jobs."
      ],
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        "(slang) a gathering of labourers, where employers hire them for day jobs."
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          "text": "Worse, he required his men to attend weekly shapeups at his social club on a busy street in lower Manhattan.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A regular meeting by a criminal organization in which jobs are assigned."
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        "(by extension) A regular meeting by a criminal organization in which jobs are assigned."
      ],
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        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
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            [
              28,
              35
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1979, Bodywork & Painting, page 15:",
          "text": "Before we began our weekend shapeup, the car looked like this: scratches and dents, broken trim, and a finish that was strictly dullsville.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              25,
              33
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1996, R. Alan Fox, 500 Best USA Vacations, page 88:",
          "text": "Here are best bets, from shapeups with time for pampering to rugged outdoor fun .",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              92,
              100
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2019, Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath:",
          "text": "Finesse a new one out of brown girl sex, confessions in composition notebooks, and poolside shapeups.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A session or routine in which someone or something is repaired or put into better shape."
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              52,
              60
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2013, Quincy T. Mills, Cutting Along the Color Line, page 239:",
          "text": "Even those who still came to the shop came only for shapeups.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              61,
              69
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2014, Michelle N. Gibbs, Zion:",
          "text": "His mom didn't do too bad of a job when she did give him the shapeups, but don't say that in Sam's shop because only men such as Sam and his crew can cut hair as good as them in that town.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              129,
              137
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2016, Ronald Lee Fleming, 4Th Street Playground: The Mecca:",
          "text": "Another former Mount Vernon resident, now living in the state of New Jersey, said he use to go to Modernistic Barber Shop to get shapeups.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A hairstyle that involves cutting along the natural hairline to straighten it."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "hairstyle",
          "hairstyle"
        ],
        [
          "hairline",
          "hairline"
        ],
        [
          "straighten",
          "straighten"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              43,
              50
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1990, Daniel Gonneau, Data Network Design Strategies, page 262:",
          "text": "Shapeup (SU) does a high-level outline, or shapeup, of a newspaper edition, including how many sections are in the edition, what the sections contain, and so on.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              223,
              230
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2006, Maciej J. Nawrocki, Mischa Dohler, Hamid Aghvami, Understanding UMTS Radio Network, page 98:",
          "text": "The method of estimation of a transmitter effective antenna height depends on the type of propagationpath (land, sea), the length for land paths (below or above 15 km) and on the availability of data concerning the terrain shapeup (for the paths shorter than 15 km).",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "An overview or outline of the major layout and shape of something."
      ]
    }
  ],
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}

Download raw JSONL data for shapeup meaning in English (6.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (ada610d and ea19a0a). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.