/ · 1894 Brewer’s · O · On the Shelf
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Passé, no longer popular, one of the “has-beens.” The reference is not to pawns laid on the shelf, but to books no longer read, and clothes no longer worn, laid by on the shelf.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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