These words refer to a creative act that works some raw material into a final state of beauty or usefulness. Mould suggests the working of some ductile or malleable material into the desired product: moulding the clay into little figurines; molten alloys that are moulded into coins at the mint. Mould in more figurative uses retains the suggestion of a tractable material; inescapably moulding the minds of their students, for better or worse. Form and shape are considerably more general than mould . They include the act of compression implicit in mould but may suggest many other ways of working, especially with a less tractable raw material. Form carries the suggestion of giving outline to something previously less well-defined; it may also suggest putting the finishing touch on a product: forming a strong political platform from the many proposals that were submitted, amended and finally approved. Shape suggests the bringing about of a more far-reaching change than is suggested by form ; it may also suggest an impersonal cause-and-effect relationship: shaping an intricate mosaic from bits of glass that lay about in seemingly confused and unrelated piles; policies that will shape our course for some time to come.

Forge suggests, most strictly, heated metals that are worked with anvil and hammer: forging pieces for a wrought-iron railing. In figurative uses it suggests a great expanse of labour to work out a solution against considerable resistance: negotiators who forged the final draft of the agreement. Fashion suggests none of the extremes of effort implicit in forge ; it is very close to the literal denotation of form and shape , and is used figuratively in much the way that mould is, referring to the influence of instruction or conditioning on a person: fashioning a talented amateur into a brilliant actor. The word may sometimes suggest an improvised solution: fashioning from her hairpin a crude device with which to open the lock.

Model relates to mould in the specific sense of working a malleable raw material: children who modelled clay for an hour each morning. The word is more frequently used, however, in the sense of displaying an example of someone’s work, especially in relation to designers of women’s clothes. Another still-viable use of this word refers to construction that is carried out along the lines of an earlier example: new countries that model their systems of government on Britain’s; modelling his spy story on all the clichéd situations used in earlier beat-sellers.

Sculpt , a back-formation from sculptor, is the most technical of all these words, and involves senses of form , shape , mould and model when applied to the art of creating a design or figure out of solid material such as stone, plaster, etc.: He was commissioned to sculpt a reclining figure for each side of the entrance.