shelve

The verb is a back-formation from shelves, the plural of shelf (“flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects”). The noun is derived from etymology 1 sense 2 (“(obsolete) to hang over or project like a shelf”).

From Late Middle English shelven (“to separate (someone or something) from another thing, keep away”); further etymology uncertain, possibly: * from shelf, shelfe (“shelf; cabinet, cupboard; grassy bank”) (though this is doubted by the Oxford English Dictionary); or * related to West Frisian skelf (“not level or straight, oblique”).

Treated as a singular form of shelves, the plural of shelf (“reef; sandbar; shoal”).