shaftとは

語源

古期英語 sceaft, from Proto-Germanic *skaftaz. Cognate with Dutch schacht, German Schaft, Swedish skaft.

発音

• (Received 発音) IPA^(key): /ʃɑːft/
• 韻: -ɑːft
• (米国発音) IPA^(key): /ʃæft/

名詞

shaft (複数形 shafts)

1. (obsolete) The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
   • c. 1343-1400,, Geoffrey Chaucer:

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

   • 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.

   Her hand slipped off the javelin's shaft towards the spearpoint and that's why her score was lowered.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175, page 071:

     Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. […]. Ikey the blacksmith had forged us a spearhead after a sketch from a picture of a Greek warrior; and a rake-handle served as a shaft.

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.
   • 2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist:

     Turbines have been around for a long time—windmills and water wheels are early examples. The name comes from the Latin turbo, meaning vortex, and thus the defining property of a turbine is that a fluid or gas turns the blades of a rotor, which is attached to a shaft that can perform useful work.

5. A beam or ray of light.

   Isn't that shaft of light from that opening in the cave beautiful?

   • 1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl:

     They were a fine company of old women, and a Dutch painter would have loved to find them there together, where the sun made bright patches on the floor and sent long, quivering shafts of gold through the dusky shade up among the rafters.

6. The main axis of a feather.

   I had no idea that they removed the feathers' shafts to make the pillows softer!

7. (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!

8. A long, narrow passage sunk into the earth, either natural or for artificial.

   Your grandfather used to work with a crane hauling ore out of the gold mine's shafts.

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

   Darn it, my keys fell through the gap and into the elevator shaft.

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

    Our parrot flew into the air duct and got stuck in the shaft.

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.

    The female labia minora is homologous to the penis shaft skin of males.

13. The chamber of a blast furnace.

使用する際の注意点

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.

同意語

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

派生語

動詞

shaft (三人称単数 現在形 shafts, 現在分詞 shafting, 過去形および過去分詞形 shafted)

1. (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.

2. (transitive) To equip with a shaft.
3. (transitive, slang) To fuck; to have sexual intercourse with.

   Turns out my roommate was shafting my girlfriend.

アナグラム

• Faths, hafts