shaft
Definitions
General English
Aviation
- noun a long, generally cylindrical bar, especially one that rotates and transmits power
Cars & Driving
- noun a round bar which transmits turning power from one part to another.
Construction
- That portion of a column between the base and the capital.
- An elevator well.
- A pit dug from the ground surface to a tunnel to furnish access and ventilation.
- Any enclosed vertical space in a building used for utilities or ventilation.
- Any cylindrical rod connecting moving parts in a machine.
Electronics
- A long and narrow rod or pole.
- A ray or beam of light.
Medical
- noun the long central section of a long bone
- noun main central section of the erect penis
Slang
- noun the penis. A predictable but rare use of the standard term.
- noun an alternative form of a shafting. It usually occurs in the form ‘get the shaft’.
- verb to have sex with, penetrate. From the noun shaft, denoting the penis.
- verb to ruin, damage, destroy (someone). Most often heard in the form of the past participle ‘shafted’, this term is another example of a slang word literally meaning to have sex with someone used metaphorically to mean humiliate or abase.
Origin & History of “shaft”
Shaft is a
general Germanic
word, shared by German and Dutch
schaft and Swedish and Danish
skaft.
these point back to a
common prehistoric
ancestor *
skaftaz,
which may
have been descended
from the Indo-European
base *
scap- ‘support’ (
source of
English sceptre (13
th c.)).
