shaft.
The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
Meaning & usage
The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
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.
Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
Any long thin object, such as the handle of a tool. One of the poles between which a draught animal is harnessed to a vehicle.
Any long thin object, such as the handle of a tool. A rotating machine element used to transmit power; a driveshaft
Any long thin object, such as the handle of a tool. 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!
A beam or ray of light.
Isn't that shaft of light from that opening in the cave beautiful?
The main axis of a feather.
I had no idea that they removed the feathers' shafts to make the pillows softer!
A vertical or inclined passage sunk into the earth as part of a mine.
Your grandfather used to work with a crane hauling ore out of the gold mine's shafts.
A vertical passage housing a lift or elevator.
Darn it, my keys fell through the gap and into the elevator shaft.
A ventilation or heating conduit.
Our parrot flew into the air duct and got stuck in the shaft.
Any column or pillar, particularly the body of a column between its capital and pedestal.
The main cylindrical part of the penis.
The female labia minora is homologous to the penis shaft skin of males.
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.
Where this word comes from
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, 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.
To fuck over; to cause harm to, especially through deceit or treachery.
Your boss really shafted you by stealing your idea like that.
To equip with a shaft.
To fuck; to have sexual intercourse with.
Turns out my roommate was shafting my girlfriend.
Where this word comes from
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, 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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.