shelf

Etymology 1

From Middle English schelfe, probably from Old English sċylfe (“deck of a ship”), distantly related to sculpt, carve and shell. Cognate to Dutch schelf.

noun

1. A flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk etc., and used to support, store or display objects.
   We keep the old newspapers on the bottom shelf of the cupboard, and our photos on the top shelf.
   Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare. October 31 2012, David M. Halbfinger, New York Times, retrieved 2012-10-31
2. The capacity of such an object
   a shelf of videos
3. A projecting ledge that resembles such an object.
4. (computing) The part of a repository where shelvesets are stored.
   This is where the Visual Studio Shelving function can help. A shelf is a place on the server in source control that is separate from the main code line so it will not affect other developers. 2012, Bradley Irby, Reengineering .NET
   A shelveset allows you to store a changeset on the server without adding it to the current codebase and sharing it with team members directly. Each team member has his own “shelf,” where he can store as many shelvesets as he wants. 2016, Wouter de Kort, DevOps on the Microsoft Stack, page 114

Etymology 2

Of obscure origin; evidently identical to Middle English shelp (“sandbar in a river”), but the sound shift is unexpected.

noun

1. A reef, shoal or sandbar.