Shelley

Shelley

In many baby name books, Shelley is listed as meaning "From the meadow on the ledge" or "clearing on a bank" sometimes truthful and pretty. It is Old English in origin. As with many other names (Ashley, Courtney, etc.), Shelley is today a name given almost exclusively to girls after historically being male. Shelley is also a transferred surname used by those in Essex, Suffolk and Yorkshire, particularly in settlements where a wood/clearing was beside a ledge or hillside.

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Famous quotes containing the word shelley:

    The man Shelley, in very truth, is not entirely sane, and Shelley’s poetry is not entirely sane either. The Shelley of actual life is a vision of beauty and radiance, indeed, but availing nothing, effecting nothing. And in poetry, no less than in life, he is a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain.”
    Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

    Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,
    The signet of its all-enslaving power,
    Upon a shining ore, and called it gold:
    Before whose image bow the vulgar great,
    The vainly rich, the miserable proud,
    The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings,
    And with blind feelings reverence the power
    That grinds them to the dust of misery.
    —Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Sow seed—but let no tyrant reap;
    Find wealth—let no imposter heap;
    Weave robes—let not the idle wear;
    Forge arms—in your defence to bear.
    —Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)