"shelf life" meaning in English

See shelf life in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shelf life.wav [US] Forms: shelf lives [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|shelf lives}} shelf life (plural shelf lives)
  1. The length of time a product (especially food and drugs) will last without deteriorating or without being sold. Categories (topical): Time Translations (the length of time a product will last without deteriorating): 有效期 (yǒuxiàoqī) (Chinese Mandarin), 保質期 (Chinese Mandarin), 保质期 (bǎozhìqī) (Chinese Mandarin), 貨架期 (Chinese Mandarin), 货架期 (huòjiàqī) (Chinese Mandarin), houdbaarheid (Dutch), säilyvyysaika (Finnish), durée de vie [feminine] (French), Lagerfähigkeit [feminine] (German), Lagerbeständigkeit [feminine] (German), Haltbarkeit [feminine] (German), umur simpan (Indonesian), durata [feminine] (Italian), conservazione [feminine] (Italian), 賞味期限 (shoumikigen) (alt: しょうみきげん) (Japanese), കാലാവധി (kālāvadhi) (Malayalam), holdbarhet [feminine, masculine] (Norwegian Bokmål), holdbarhetstid [feminine, masculine] (Norwegian Bokmål), trwałość [feminine] (Polish), validade (Portuguese), duração (Portuguese), vigencia [feminine] (Spanish), duración [feminine] (Spanish), hållbarhet [common-gender] (Swedish), raf ömrü (Turkish), hạn sử dụng (Vietnamese)
    Sense id: en-shelf_life-en-noun-u5lPzmXp Disambiguation of Time: 33 33 34 Disambiguation of 'the length of time a product will last without deteriorating': 51 11 38
  2. The maximum time a packaged material can be stored under specific conditions and still meet the performance requirements specified. Categories (topical): Time Synonyms: storage life, shelflife Related terms: expiration date, sell-by date
    Sense id: en-shelf_life-en-noun-r1~bJIbT Disambiguation of Time: 33 33 34 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 4 94 2
  3. (figuratively) The length of time that something is popular or fashionable. Tags: figuratively Categories (topical): Time
    Sense id: en-shelf_life-en-noun-Q0HbcQNS Disambiguation of Time: 33 33 34

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for shelf life meaning in English (7.9kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shelf lives",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shelf lives"
      },
      "expansion": "shelf life (plural shelf lives)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "33 33 34",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Time",
          "orig": "en:Time",
          "parents": [
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The length of time a product (especially food and drugs) will last without deteriorating or without being sold."
      ],
      "id": "en-shelf_life-en-noun-u5lPzmXp",
      "links": [
        [
          "food",
          "food"
        ],
        [
          "drug",
          "drug"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "yǒuxiàoqī",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "有效期"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "保質期"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "bǎozhìqī",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "保质期"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "貨架期"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "huòjiàqī",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "货架期"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "houdbaarheid"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "säilyvyysaika"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "durée de vie"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Lagerfähigkeit"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Lagerbeständigkeit"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "Haltbarkeit"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "note": "felhasználhatósági/eltarthatósági/szavatossági/fogyaszthatósági idő/időtartam",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "id",
          "lang": "Indonesian",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "umur simpan"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "durata"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "conservazione"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "alt": "しょうみきげん",
          "code": "ja",
          "lang": "Japanese",
          "roman": "shoumikigen",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "賞味期限"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "ml",
          "lang": "Malayalam",
          "roman": "kālāvadhi",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "കാലാവധി"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine",
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "holdbarhet"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine",
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "holdbarhetstid"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "trwałość"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "validade"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "duração"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "vigencia"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "duración"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "tags": [
            "common-gender"
          ],
          "word": "hållbarhet"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "tr",
          "lang": "Turkish",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "raf ömrü"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "51 11 38",
          "code": "vi",
          "lang": "Vietnamese",
          "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
          "word": "hạn sử dụng"
        }
      ]
    },
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        {
          "_dis": "4 94 2",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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          "_dis": "33 33 34",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Time",
          "orig": "en:Time",
          "parents": [
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The maximum time a packaged material can be stored under specific conditions and still meet the performance requirements specified."
      ],
      "id": "en-shelf_life-en-noun-r1~bJIbT",
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "5 89 6",
          "word": "expiration date"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "5 89 6",
          "word": "sell-by date"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "storage life"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "5 89 6",
          "word": "shelflife"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "33 33 34",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Time",
          "orig": "en:Time",
          "parents": [
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016 August 22, “The Cincinnati Zoo Really Hates Your Harambe Memes”, in VICE, archived from the original on 2023-05-27",
          "text": "As earnest and heartfelt as Maynard's plea for the end of Harambe image macros is, his best course of action is probably just to wait a few more weeks until the joke has dried up. Harambe may have a better shelf life than Damn Daniel or whatever, but there's no way its got the legs of \"Smooth.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 21, Catie Keck, “Netflix thinks games matter more than buying movie studios”, in The Verge, archived from the original on 2023-03-31",
          "text": "When looking at the company’s future challenges this way, Netflix’s big bet on gaming tracks. It creates new ways to extend the shelf life of content and characters that are already resonating with viewers. But what would Netflix games even look like?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The length of time that something is popular or fashionable."
      ],
      "id": "en-shelf_life-en-noun-Q0HbcQNS",
      "links": [
        [
          "popular",
          "popular#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "fashionable",
          "fashionable#Adjective"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) The length of time that something is popular or fashionable."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shelf life.wav",
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      "tags": [
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  "wikipedia": [
    "Shelf life"
  ],
  "word": "shelf life"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "en:Time"
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shelf lives",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
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  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shelf lives"
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      "expansion": "shelf life (plural shelf lives)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "expiration date"
    },
    {
      "word": "sell-by date"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "The length of time a product (especially food and drugs) will last without deteriorating or without being sold."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "food",
          "food"
        ],
        [
          "drug",
          "drug"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "The maximum time a packaged material can be stored under specific conditions and still meet the performance requirements specified."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "storage life"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2016 August 22, “The Cincinnati Zoo Really Hates Your Harambe Memes”, in VICE, archived from the original on 2023-05-27",
          "text": "As earnest and heartfelt as Maynard's plea for the end of Harambe image macros is, his best course of action is probably just to wait a few more weeks until the joke has dried up. Harambe may have a better shelf life than Damn Daniel or whatever, but there's no way its got the legs of \"Smooth.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2021 July 21, Catie Keck, “Netflix thinks games matter more than buying movie studios”, in The Verge, archived from the original on 2023-03-31",
          "text": "When looking at the company’s future challenges this way, Netflix’s big bet on gaming tracks. It creates new ways to extend the shelf life of content and characters that are already resonating with viewers. But what would Netflix games even look like?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The length of time that something is popular or fashionable."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "popular",
          "popular#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "fashionable",
          "fashionable#Adjective"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figuratively) The length of time that something is popular or fashionable."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "figuratively"
      ]
    }
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  "sounds": [
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      "tags": [
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    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "shelflife"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "yǒuxiàoqī",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "有效期"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "保質期"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "bǎozhìqī",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "保质期"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "貨架期"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "huòjiàqī",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "货架期"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "houdbaarheid"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "säilyvyysaika"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "durée de vie"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Lagerfähigkeit"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Lagerbeständigkeit"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "Haltbarkeit"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "note": "felhasználhatósági/eltarthatósági/szavatossági/fogyaszthatósági idő/időtartam",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating"
    },
    {
      "code": "id",
      "lang": "Indonesian",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "umur simpan"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "durata"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "conservazione"
    },
    {
      "alt": "しょうみきげん",
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "roman": "shoumikigen",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "賞味期限"
    },
    {
      "code": "ml",
      "lang": "Malayalam",
      "roman": "kālāvadhi",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "കാലാവധി"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "holdbarhet"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "holdbarhetstid"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "trwałość"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "validade"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "duração"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "vigencia"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "duración"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "tags": [
        "common-gender"
      ],
      "word": "hållbarhet"
    },
    {
      "code": "tr",
      "lang": "Turkish",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "raf ömrü"
    },
    {
      "code": "vi",
      "lang": "Vietnamese",
      "sense": "the length of time a product will last without deteriorating",
      "word": "hạn sử dụng"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Shelf life"
  ],
  "word": "shelf life"
}
{
  "called_from": "translations/609-20230504",
  "msg": "Translation too long compared to word, so it is skipped",
  "path": [
    "shelf life"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "shelf life",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.