The specific grammatical rule for forming the plural of the noun 'shelf'—and many similar Germanic English nouns ending in a voiceless 'f' or 'fe' sound—is to drop the final 'f' or 'fe' entirely and add '-ves' to the end. Therefore, the singular 'shelf' becomes the plural 'shelves'. Other common examples that follow this exact irregular pluralization pattern include 'thief' turning into 'thieves', 'wolf' becoming 'wolves', 'leaf' turning into 'leaves', 'half' into 'halves', and 'knife' becoming 'knives'.
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