a long pole forming the body of various weapons, as lances, halberds, or arrows.
something directed or barbed as in sharp attack: shafts of sarcasm.
a ray or beam: a shaft of sunlight.
a long, comparatively straight handle serving as an important or balancing part of an implement or device, as of a hammer, ax, golf club, or other implement.
Machinery. a rotating or oscillating round, straight bar for transmitting motion and torque, usually supported on bearings and carrying gears, wheels, or the like, as a propeller shaft on a ship, or a drive shaft of an engine.
a flagpole.
Architecture.
that part of a column or pier between the base and capital.
any distinct, slender, vertical masonry feature engaged in a wall or pier and usually supporting or feigning to support an arch or vault.
a monument in the form of a column, obelisk, or the like.
either of the parallel bars of wood between which the animal drawing a vehicle is hitched.
any well-like passage or vertical enclosed space, as in a building: an elevator shaft.
Mining. a vertical or sloping passageway leading to the surface.
Botany. the trunk of a tree.
Zoology. the main stem or midrib of a feather.
Also called leaf. Textiles. the harness or warp with reference to the pattern of interlacing threads in weave constructions (usually used in combination): an eight-shaft satin.
the part of a candelabrum that supports the branches.
Slang: Vulgar. the penis.
Slang: harsh, unfair, or treacherous treatment: I feel like he’s giving me the shaft.
verb (used with object)
to push or propel with a pole: to shaft a boat through a tunnel.
Slang. to treat in a harsh, unfair, or treacherous manner.
Origin of shaft
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English sceaft; cognate with German Schaft; compare Latin scāpus “shaft,” Greek skêptronscepter