shaft
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
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)
- 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.
- (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.
- Chaucer
- A beam or ray of light.
- Isn't that shaft of light from that opening in the cave beautiful?
- 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.
- Milton
- 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!
- The main axis of a feather
- I had no idea that they removed the feathers' shafts to make the pillows softer!
- (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!
- 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.
- A vertical or near-vertical cave passage.
- A vertical passage housing a lift or elevator; a liftshaft.
- Darn it, my keys fell through the gap and into the elevator shaft.
- A ventilation or heating conduit; an air duct.
- Our parrot flew into the air duct and got stuck in the shaft.
- 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!
- The main cylindrical part of the penis
- (architecture) The body of a column; the cylindrical pillar between the capital and base.
- A column, an obelisk, or other spire-shaped or columnar monument.
- Emerson
- Bid time and nature gently spare / The shaft we raise to thee.
- Emerson
- The chamber of a blast furnace.
Translations [edit]
long narrow body of spear or arrow
beam or ray of light
any long, thin object
main axis of a feather
lacrosse: long narrow body of the stick
long narrow passage sunk into the earth
vertical passage housing a lift
ventilation or heating conduit
the shaft of the penis
- 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.
Translations to be checked
Verb [edit]
shaft (third-person singular simple present shafts, present participle shafting, simple past and past participle shafted)
- (transitive) to equip something with a shaft
- (transitive, slang) To have sexual intercourse with someone
- Turns out my best mate was shafting my girlfriend.
- (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]
slang: to engage in a malicious act
