English

Verb

shouldering

1. present participle of shoulder

Noun

shouldering ‎(plural shoulderings)

1. The act of pushing or barging with the shoulder.
   • Elisha Kent Kane, Arctic Explorations

     Our whole force was mustered and kept constantly on the alert; but, though there may have been something of discourtesy in the occasional shoulderings and hustlings that enforced the police of the ship, things went on good-humouredly.

   • 2005, Jeff Mann, Loving Mountains, Loving Men

     […] at the Jefferson Memorial or the Statue of Liberty, amid the noisy presence and restless shoulderings of other tourists.

2. (architecture) The process of bracing a load with a jutting structural member such as a corbel or bracket.
3. A flanged portion of something, similar to a lip but occurring on the side rather than the rim.
   

   axle with shouldering
   • 1803, Repertory of Arts Manufactures and Agriculture:

     And farther, that being fitted to each other on their fiat sides, alternate male and female (see drawing annexed), by means of the shoulderings or wedgewise-securings, and abutments, which will be better and more clearly understood by a view of the drawings annexed to hese presents, and to which we hereafter particularyly refer;

   • 1995, Saint Bede (the Venerable), ‎Seán Connolly, ‎& Jennifer O'Reilly, Bede: On the Temple, ISBN 0853230498, page 98:

     Furthermore the shoulderings which were put outside the wheels to prevent them from slipping off the axles, are the proclamations of the prophets which lend weight to the evangelical and apostolic writing lest it should be doubted by any of its readers.

4. The rounding and raising of the top edges of slate tiles.