Origins
The word 'shape' descends from Old English 'gesceap' (form, created thing, creature, creation), fromβββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ Proto-Germanic *ga-skapjΔ (a creation, a form), derived from the verb *skapjanΔ (to create, to shape, to ordain), which ultimately traces to PIE *skep- (to cut, to scrape). The Old English prefix 'ge-' (a collective/perfective marker cognate with German 'ge-') was lost during the Middle English period, leaving the modern form 'shape.'
The PIE root *skep- (to cut, to scrape) reveals that the original concept of 'shaping' was subtractive rather than additive. The Proto-Indo-Europeans understood form-giving as cutting away β carving raw material to reveal the shape within, as a sculptor chips away stone to reveal a statue. This connects 'shape' to a family of words about cutting and scraping, and the semantic development from 'to cut' to 'to create' to 'form/shape' is a natural progression: what you cut becomes what you make, and what you make has a shape.
The Proto-Germanic verb *skapjanΔ (to create, to shape) was remarkably productive. It gave rise to Old Norse 'skapa' (to create, to shape β surviving in modern Swedish 'skapa' and Danish 'skabe'), Old High German 'scaffan' (modern German 'schaffen,' to create, to work), and the English suffix '-ship' (as in 'friendship,' 'kinship,' 'fellowship'). The suffix '-ship' originally meant 'the condition or state that has been shaped/created' β friendship is the state shaped by friends. German '-schaft' (as in 'Freundschaft,' friendship, and 'Landschaft,' landscape) is the direct cognate.
Word Formation
The word 'landscape' itself entered English in the seventeenth century from Dutch 'landschap' (the shape or condition of the land), a compound of 'land' + '-schap' (from the same root as 'shape'). The Dutch painters of the Golden Age, who pioneered landscape painting as a genre, gave English both the word and the concept. The later formations 'seascape,' 'cityscape,' and 'moonscape' all use '-scape' as a suffix meaning 'a shaped view of' β though speakers no longer feel the connection to 'shape.'
The Old English meaning of 'gesceap' included not just physical form but also 'creation' in a cosmic sense β the shape of the world as God created it. The Old English poem 'Genesis' uses 'gesceap' for God's creative acts. The word carried a sense of ordained destiny: the shape of things was the order imposed by a creator. This theological dimension has faded from the modern word, which is primarily spatial and physical.
The phrase 'in shape' (physically fit) dates from the mid-twentieth century. 'To shape up' (to improve, to become satisfactory) dates from the nineteenth century. 'Shapely' (having an attractive form, especially of a woman's body) dates from the fourteenth century β one of the oldest surviving adjective forms. 'Misshapen' (badly formed, deformed) preserves the past participle of the Old English verb 'scieppan' (to shape), with the prefix 'mis-' indicating wrongness.