shaft

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English [edit]

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Etymology [edit]

Old English sceaft, from Germanic Proto-Germanic *skaftaz. Cognate with Dutch schacht, German Schaft, Swedish skaft.

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

shaft (plural shafts)

  1. The long narrow body of a spear or arrow
    Her hand slipped off the javelin's shaft towards the spearpoint and that's why her score was lowered.
  2. (by extension, obsolete) An arrow.
    • Chaucer
      His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, / That lean he wax, and dry as is a shaft.
    • Ascham
      A shaft hath three principal parts, the stele, the feathers, and the head.
  3. A beam or ray of light.
    Isn't that shaft of light from that opening in the cave beautiful?
  4. Anything cast or thrown.
    • Milton
      And the thunder, / Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, / Perhaps hath spent his shafts.
    • V. Knox
      Some kinds of literary pursuits [] have been attacked with all the shafts of ridicule.
  5. Any long thin object, such as the handle of a tool, one of the poles between which an animal is harnessed to a vehicle, the driveshaft of a motorized vehicle with rear-wheel drive, an axle, etc.
    Dude, the baseball bat's shaft got broken by the amazing pitch!
  6. The main axis of a feather
    I had no idea that they removed the feathers' shafts to make the pillows softer!
  7. (lacrosse) The long narrow body of a lacrosse stick
    Sarah, if you wear gloves your hands might not slip on your shaft and you can up your game, girl!
  8. A long narrow passage sunk into the earth, for mining etc; a mineshaft.
    Your grandfather used to work with a crane hauling ore out of the gold mine's shafts.
  9. A vertical or near-vertical cave passage.
  10. A vertical passage housing a lift or elevator; a liftshaft.
    Darn it, my keys fell through the gap and into the elevator shaft.
  11. A ventilation or heating conduit; an air duct.
    Our parrot flew into the air duct and got stuck in the shaft.
  12. A malicious act, as in “to give someone the shaft”
    That guy at work gave me the shaft, he ratted me out to the boss for being late!
  13. The main cylindrical part of the penis
  14. (architecture) The body of a column; the cylindrical pillar between the capital and base.
  15. A column, an obelisk, or other spire-shaped or columnar monument.
    • Emerson
      Bid time and nature gently spare / The shaft we raise to thee.
  16. The chamber of a blast furnace.

Translations [edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Verb [edit]

shaft (third-person singular simple present shafts, present participle shafting, simple past and past participle shafted)

  1. (transitive) to equip something with a shaft
  2. (transitive, slang) To have sexual intercourse with someone
    Turns out my best mate was shafting my girlfriend.
  3. (transitive, slang) To cause someone harm, especially in a deceitful or treacherous way.
    He got shafted when his boss took credit for what he had done.

Translations [edit]

Anagrams [edit]