shaft
Pronunciation: /ˈʃɑːft/
The English word “shaft” has 20 meanings listed here.
noun
- The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
- The long, narrow, central body of a spear, arrow, or javelin.
- Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
- One of the poles between which a draught animal is harnessed to a vehicle.
- A rotating machine element used to transmit power; a driveshaft
- The long narrow body of a lacrosse stick.
- A beam or ray of light.
- The main axis of a feather.
- A vertical or inclined passage sunk into the earth as part of a mine.
- A vertical passage housing a lift or elevator.
- A ventilation or heating conduit.
- Any column or pillar, particularly the body of a column between its capital and pedestal.
- The main cylindrical part of the penis.
- The chamber of a blast furnace.
- A relatively small area of precipitation that an onlook can discern from the dry surrounding area.
- A component of a loom which holds the heddles and is raised by treadles to create the shed.
- An act of sexual intercourse.
verb
Etymology
From Middle English chafte, saft, scaft, schaft, schafte, scheft, shaffet, shaft, from Old English sċeaft, from Proto-West Germanic *skaft, from Proto-Germanic *skaftaz (“shaft”), from Proto-Indo-European *skeh₂p- (“club, rod, shaft, staff”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch schacht (“shaft”), German Schaft (“shaft”), Low German Schacht, Skacht (“shaft; cane, stick; beating”), Danish, Icelandic,…
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.