shaft
UK /ˈʃɑːft/ · US /ˈʃæft/ noun, verb
Forms shafts shafting shafted
- noun (obsolete) The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
- noun The long, narrow, central body of a spear, arrow, or javelin. “Her hand slipped off the javelin's shaft towards the spearpoint and that's why her score was lowered.”
- noun (by extension) Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
- noun One of the poles between which a draught animal is harnessed to a vehicle.
- noun A rotating machine element used to transmit power; a driveshaft
- noun (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!”
- noun (literary) A beam or ray of light. “Isn't that shaft of light from that opening in the cave beautiful?”
- noun The main axis of a feather. “I had no idea that they removed the feathers' shafts to make the pillows softer!”
- verb (transitive, slang) To fuck over; to cause harm to, especially through deceit or treachery. “Your boss really shafted you by stealing your idea like that.”
- verb (transitive) To equip with a shaft.
- verb (transitive, slang) To fuck; to have sexual intercourse with. “Turns out my roommate was shafting my girlfriend.”
Synonyms
stale pole carriage pole rachis mineshaft liftshaft airduct harness abuse beglammer counterfeit deceive catch trap into dissemble dissimulate feign jiff lead astray overreach shot slam dig barb jibe gibe beam beam of light light beam ray
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”).
Cognate with Dutch schacht (“shaft”), German Schaft (“shaft”), Low German Schacht, Skacht (“shaft; cane, stick; beating”), Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish skaft (“handle; stem; shaft”); also Latin scapus (“stalk, stem; shaft”), Greek σκήπτρο (skíptro, “sceptre”), Albanian shkop (“staff, stick”), Belarusian кап'ё (kapʺjó, “spear”), Bulgarian ко́пие (kópie, “spear”), Czech kopí (“spear”), Macedonian копје (kopje, “spear”), Polish kopia (“spear”), Russian копьё (kopʹjó, “spear”), Serbo-Croatian ко̏пље, kȍplje (“spear”), Slovak kopija (“spear”), Slovene kopje (“javelin”).
In Early Modern English, shaft referred to the entire body of a long weapon, such that an arrow's “shaft” was composed of its tip, stale, and fletching. Over time, the word came to be used in place of the former stale and lost its original meaning.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The slender, smooth stem of an arrow; hence, an arrow.
- noun The long handle of a spear or similar weapon; hence, the weapon itself; (Fig.) anything regarded as a shaft to be thrown or darted; as, shafts of light.
Etymology [OE. shaft, schaft, AS. sceaft; akin to D. schacht, OHG. scaft, G. schaft, Dan. & Sw. skaft handle, haft, Icel. skapt, and probably to L. scapus, Gr. Scape, Scepter, Shave.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shaft”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details