shaft

English Online Dictionary. What means shaft‎? What does shaft mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English schaft, from Old English sċeaft, from Proto-West Germanic *skaft, from Proto-Germanic *skaftaz. Cognate with Dutch schacht, German German Schaft, Swedish skaft.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʃɑːft/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ʃæft/
• Rhymes: -ɑːft

Noun

shaft (plural shafts)

1. (obsolete) The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
   • c. 1515-1568, Roger Ascham:

     A shaft hath three principal parts, the stele, the feathers, and the head.

2. The long, narrow, central body of a spear, arrow, or javelin.
3. (by extension) Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
   • c. 1608-1674, John Milton:

     And the thunder, / Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, / Perhaps hath spent his shafts.

   • c. 1752-1821, Vicesimus Knox:

     Some kinds of literary pursuits […] have been attacked with all the shafts of ridicule.

4. 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.
5. A beam or ray of light.
6. The main axis of a feather.

7. (lacrosse) The long narrow body of a lacrosse stick.

8. A vertical or inclined passage sunk into the earth as part of a mine

9. A vertical passage housing a lift or elevator; a liftshaft.

10. A ventilation or heating conduit; an air duct.

11. (architecture) Any column or pillar, particularly the body of a column between its capital and pedestal.
    • c. 1803-1882, Ralph Waldo Emerson:

      Bid time and nature gently spare / The shaft we raise to thee.

12. The main cylindrical part of the penis.

13. The chamber of a blast furnace.
14. (meteorology) A relatively small area of precipitation that an onlook can discern from the dry surrounding area.

Usage notes

In Early Modern English, the shaft referred to the entire body of a long weapon, such that an arrow's "shaft" was composed of its "tip", "stale" or "steal", and "fletching". Palsgrave (circa 1530) glossed the French j[']empenne as "I fether a shafte, I put fethers upon a steale". Over time, the word came to be used in place of the former "stale" and lost its original meaning.

Synonyms

• stale, stail, steal, stele, steel (arrows, spears)
• (main axis of a feather): rachis
• mineshaft (vertical underground passage)

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive, slang) To fuck over; to cause harm to, especially through deceit or treachery.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:deceive
2. (transitive) To equip with a shaft.
3. (transitive, slang) To fuck; to have sexual intercourse with.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:copulate with

   • 2018 Christian Cooke as Mickey Argyle, "Episode 2", Ordeal by Innocence (written by Sarah Phelps) 23 minutes

     Well at least I can get it up. No wonder Mary's going out of her head. Stuck with you sponging off her and not even a decent shafting for her trouble.

Translations

Anagrams

• Faths, hafts

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English sċeaft (“shaft”).

Noun

shaft

1. Alternative form of schaft (“shaft”)
   • c. 1343-1400, Geoffrey Chaucer:

     His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, / That lean he wax, and dry as is a shaft.

Etymology 2

From Old English sċeaft (“creation”).

Noun

shaft

1. Alternative form of schaft (“creation”)