Shape

Shape usually implies the general outline of something--a delineation and an area and not necessarily volume and dimension.

Notes From Vision & Invention, An Introduction to Art Fundamentals:
Shape is understood in this chapter as essentially a flat or silhouette image, pertaining to area rather than to volume or mass.....

Consider form as the "true shape of content." .....Planar or Quadrilateral forms.... associated with man-made or crystalline forms--those that often reveal their structures openly.....

But line, because it is so active, tends to create forms that are themselves rather passive in character. Their interest often lies more at their edges than at their centers, from which energy is usually expected to assert itself.

The term outline would have more significance if used along with its functional opposite, inline. The two together would foster a more lively appreciation of the internal and external forces at work between form (or shape) and environment.

If there remains any doubt concerning the ability of line to represent the conjuncture of form (or shape), space, and movement, the student-artist may start this series of studies by using line to record his or her experience of an interior.....

Shape and form may also be attained from the center outward [a more sculptural and painterly approach as opposed to a "graphic" approach.]. The results will be assertive rather than passive, in contrast to an undisciplined linear approach. A shape created from the center outward seems capable of alteration from within, as is true of living things. We could start with a point and allow it to "grow," to extend itself slowly to the limit of its energy. If it develops as a perfect circle, it will exert pressure equally in all directions from its center. If its development is less than equal in all directions, it will appear to yield to the pressures of its environment along parts of its frontier. We could diagram these forces by means of axes radiating at several degrees from the heart of the form. The counter-thrusts from without could be pointed out by means of arrows.

[Harlan, Calvin. Vision & Invention, An Introduction to Art Fundamentals. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986.]

R  E  F  E  R  E  N  C  E  S 

2 Shape n [bef 12c] 1a: the visible makeup characteristic of a particular item or kind of item b [1]: spatial form or contour [2]: a standard or universally recognized spatial form 2: the appearance of the body as distinguished from that of the face: Figure 3a: Phantom, Apparition b: assumed appearance: Guise 4: form of embodiment 5: a mode of existence or form of being having identifying features 6: something having a particular form 7: the condition in which someone or something exists at a particular time [the car was in fine __] -in shape: in an original, normal, or fit condition [exercises to keep in shape]

Shapeless adj [14c] 1: having no definite shape 2a: deprived of usual or normal shape: Misshapen [a __ old hat] b: not shapely