Shed

How to spell shed

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shed

What does shed mean?

1. nounA small, simple building used for storage or shelter, often in a garden or yard.
2. verbTo let something fall away or to lose it naturally, such as hair, skin, leaves, or weight.

Shed in a sentence

• noun

  He kept the lawnmower and the tools locked in the garden shed.

• verb

  Many dogs shed their thick coats as the weather warms up.

• noun

  The bicycles are stored in a wooden shed behind the house.

• verb

  The oak trees shed their leaves every autumn.

Where does shed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word actually combines two strands that both feel native and Germanic. The verb 'shed', meaning to cast off or let fall, descends from the Old English scēadan, which meant 'to divide, separate, or part', and is related to the same root that gives us 'watershed', a ridge that parts the flow of water. Over the centuries the idea of separating slid into the modern sense of an animal or tree letting go of its hair, skin, or leaves, and then into shedding tears or shedding weight. The noun 'shed', meaning a simple outbuilding, has a separate and humbler history: it appears in late Middle English and is widely thought to be a variant of 'shade', a structure that offers shelter or shadow. Because the spelling is short and entirely phonetic, with one consonant blend at the front and a plain short vowel, it gives writers almost no trouble.

How the word is built

• shed (single root; no prefix or suffix, from Old English scēadan 'to divide')