share

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʃɛə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ʃɛɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)

From Middle English schare, schere, from Old English sċearu (“a cutting, shaving, a shearing, tonsure, part, division, share”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaru, from Proto-Germanic *skarō (“a division, detachment”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut, divide”).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian skar, sker (“a share in a communal pasture”), Dutch schare (“share in property”), German Schar (“band, troop, party, company”), Icelandic skor (“department”). Compare shard, shear. Doublet of eschel.

share (plural shares)

1. A portion of something, especially a portion given or allotted to someone.

   Each of the robbers took a share of the loot.

   The TV programme was cancelled because it only gained a 10% share of that night's viewing audience.

   • 2023 July 26, Paul Clifton, “A (safe and secure) Day at the Races...”, in RAIL, number 988, page 35:

     SWR has more than its fair share of major national events. As well as the [Queen's] funeral and the coronation in the past 12 months, annual events include racing at Ascot, grand slam tennis at Wimbledon, and rugby internationals at Twickenham.

2. (finance) A financial instrument that shows that one owns a part of a company that provides the benefit of limited liability.
3. (computing) A configuration enabling a resource to be shared over a network.

   Upload media from the browser or directly to the file share.

4. (social media) The action of sharing something with other people via social media.
   • 2016, Brooke Warner, Green-Light Your Book:

     Social media is supervisual, and there's nothing more shareable than images, so this is a way to increase shares and likes and follows.

5. (anatomy) The sharebone or pubis.
   • 1606, Suetonius, translated by Philemon Holland, De Vita Cæsarum:

     […] [H]ee stabbed him beneth in the very share neere unto his privie parts. [Dom.17]

share (third-person singular simple present shares, present participle sharing, simple past and past participle shared)

1. To give part of what one has to somebody else to use or consume.
2. To have or use in common.

   to share a shelter with another

   They share a language.

   • a. 1675, John Milton, On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester; republished in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, […], volume II, Amsterdam [actually London: s.n.], 1698, →OCLC, page 24:

     While Avarice and Rapine ſhare the Land.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056:

     Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

   • 1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 752:

     The Kleine Scheidegg is quite a colony, with its railway station, shared by the Wengernalp and Jungfrau Railways, its commodious station buffet and two large hotels.

3. To divide and distribute.
   • 1708 December 15 (Gregorian calendar; date written), [Jonathan Swift], A Letter from a Member of the House of Commons in Ireland to a Member of the House of Commons in England, Concerning the Sacramental Test, London: […] John Morphew […], published 1709, →OCLC, page 21:

     [S]uppose I ſhare my Fortune equally between my own Children, and a Stranger whom I take into my Protection; will that be a Method to unite them?

4. To tell to another.

   He shared his story with the press.

   • 2013 May 10, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly‎, volume 189, number 2, page 27:

     The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […] offering services that let you […] “share the things you love with the world” and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.

5. (computing, Internet) To allow public or private sharing of computer data or space in a network

From Middle English share, schare, shaar, from Old English sċear, sċær (“ploughshare”), from Proto-Germanic *skaraz (“ploughshare”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Cognate with Dutch schaar (“ploughshare”), dialectal German Schar (“ploughshare”), Danish (plov)skær (“ploughshare”). More at shear.

share (plural shares)

1. (agriculture) The cutting blade of an agricultural machine like a plough, a cultivator or a seeding-machine.
   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task, Book IV:

     The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,
     Upturn'd so lately by the fearful share.

• ploughshare/plowshare
• sharebeam

share (third-person singular simple present shares, present participle sharing, simple past and past participle shared)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To cut; to shear; to cleave; to divide.
   • 1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     The shar'd visage hangs on equal sides.

• Asher, Rahes, Shear, asher, earsh, hares, harse, hears, heras, rheas, sehar, sehra, shear

Pseudo-anglicism, derived from share.

share m (plural shari)

1. (television) percent of people watching a particular show out of the total viewing audience at a given time
   • 2024 February 11, Giuseppe Candela, “Sanremo 2024, chiude con ascolti record: 74,1% di share, è la finale più vista dal 1995 con Pippo Baudo. Il picco con Fiorello e Roberto Bolle [Sanremo 2024, closes off with record viewership: 74.1% of the viewing audience, and the most viewed finale since 1995 with Pippo Baudo. The peak with Fiorello and Roberto Bolle]”, in il Fatto Quotidiano‎:

     Edizione da incorniciare. “Sanremo 2024” saluta il pubblico con ascolti record: la quinta serata è stata vista da ben 14.301.000 con il 74,1% di share.

     An edition that should be framed. "Sanremo 2024" greets the audience with record viewership: the fifth night was viewed by no less than 14,301,000 people with 74.1% of the viewing audience.

2. (finance) share (financial instrument that shows that one owns a part of a company)

share

1. Rōmaji transcription of しゃれ
2. Rōmaji transcription of シャレ

From Old Irish is ferr (“it’s better”), from Proto-Celtic *werros, from Proto-Indo-European *wers- (“peak”). Akin to Latin verrūca (“steep place, height”), Lithuanian viršùs (“top, head”) and Old Church Slavonic врьхъ (vrĭxŭ, “top, peak”). Compare Irish fearr.

share

1. comparative degree of mie

   Share çhyndaa cabbil ayns mean ny h-aah na goll er vaih.

   Better to change horses in mid ford than to drown.

From Old English scear, from Proto-Germanic *skaraz (“ploughshare”).

• sharre, shzar, sher

• IPA^(key): /ʃar/, /ʃaːr/

share (plural shares)

1. plowshare

• English: share
• Yola: shor

• “shā̆r(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

From Old English sċearu, from Proto-West Germanic *skaru, from Proto-Germanic *skarō.

• schar, sharre

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃaːr(ə)/

share (plural shares)

1. portion

• English: share
• Scots: schare
• Yola: shaar

• “shār(e, n.(3).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Unadapted borrowing from English share.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃeɾ/ [ˈʃeɾ]
• Rhymes: -eɾ

share m (plural shares)

1. (television) share of the audience
   • 2000, Valerio Fuenzalida, La televisión pública en América Latina: reforma o privatización:

     Ambos muestran problemas de administración con fuerte inestabilidad y graves problemas económicos, con baja sintonía y credibilidad por ser canales del gobierno; en 1998 tuvo un share promedio de 3,3% (Television Latin America, 1999; Cfr. La Industria Audiovisual Iberoamericana, 1998).

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 2003, Eduardo Ladrón de Guevara, Querido maestro: dos en un sofá‎, volume 2:

     En concreto, en la primera temporada (2001- 2002), la serie alcanza una media de 5,5 millones de espectadores y un share de 33,3%.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 2005, Albor Rodríguez, Misses de Venezuela: reinas que cautivaron a un país:

     De acuerdo a las estadísticas de la planta, el Miss Venezuela es el programa más visto de la televisión venezolana con un share de 75,9% […]

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.