shelf life

See also: shelflife

English

Alternative forms

• shelflife

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

shelf life (plural shelf lives)

1. The length of time a product (especially food and drugs) will last without deteriorating or without being sold.
2. The maximum time a packaged material can be stored under specific conditions and still meet the performance requirements specified.

   Synonym: storage life

3. (figuratively) The length of time that something is popular or fashionable.
   • 2016 August 22, “The Cincinnati Zoo Really Hates Your Harambe Memes”, in VICE‎^[1], archived from the original on 2023-05-27:

     As earnest and heartfelt as Maynard's plea for the end of Harambe image macros is, his best course of action is probably just to wait a few more weeks until the joke has dried up. Harambe may have a better shelf life than Damn Daniel or whatever, but there's no way its got the legs of "Smooth."

   • 2021 July 21, Catie Keck, “Netflix thinks games matter more than buying movie studios”, in The Verge‎^[2], archived from the original on 2023-03-31:

     When looking at the company’s future challenges this way, Netflix’s big bet on gaming tracks. It creates new ways to extend the shelf life of content and characters that are already resonating with viewers. But what would Netflix games even look like?

Translations

the length of time a product will last without deteriorating

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 有效期 (zh) (yǒuxiàoqī), 保質期／保质期 (zh) (bǎozhìqī), 貨架期／货架期 (huòjiàqī)

• Dutch: houdbaarheid (nl)
• Finnish: säilyvyysaika
• French: durée de vie (fr) f
• German: Lagerfähigkeit f, Lagerbeständigkeit f, Haltbarkeit (de) f
• Hungarian: felhasználhatósági​/eltarthatósági​/szavatossági/fogyaszthatósági idő/​időtartam
• Indonesian: umur simpan
• Italian: durata (it) f, conservazione (it) f
• Japanese: 賞味期限 (ja) (しょうみきげん, shoumikigen)
• Malayalam: കാലാവധി (ml) (kālāvadhi)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: holdbarhet m or f, holdbarhetstid m or f

• Polish: trwałość (pl) f
• Portuguese: validade (pt), duração (pt)
• Spanish: vigencia (es) f, duración (es) f
• Swedish: hållbarhet (sv) c
• Turkish: raf ömrü (tr)
• Vietnamese: hạn sử dụng (vi)

See also

• expiration date
• sell-by date

Further reading

• “shelf life”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “shelf life, n.” under “shelf, n.¹”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• shelf life on Wikipedia.Wikipedia