shaft

Etymology

From Middle English schaft, from Old English sċeaft, from Proto-West Germanic *skaft, from Proto-Germanic *skaftaz. Cognate with Dutch schacht, German German Schaft, Swedish skaft.

noun

1. (obsolete) The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
   His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, / That lean he wax, and dry as is a shaft. c. 1343-1400, Geoffrey Chaucer
   A shaft hath three principal parts, the stele, the feathers, and the head. c. 1515-1568, Roger Ascham
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.
3. (by extension) Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
   And the thunder, / Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, / Perhaps hath spent his shafts. c. 1608-1674, John Milton
   Some kinds of literary pursuits […] have been attacked with all the shafts of ridicule. c. 1752-1821, Vicesimus Knox
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.
   While Kitto chatted to William, Jessamy looked with interest at the dog cart. It had a pair of high wooden wheels with two seats back to back above. Between the shafts the bay mare tossed her head and fidgeted on the cobbles. 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, page 57
   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. 2013 July-August, Lee S. Langston, “The Adaptable Gas Turbine”, in American Scientist
5. A beam or ray of light.
   Isn't that shaft of light from that opening in the cave beautiful?
   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. 1912, Willa Cather, The Bohemian Girl:
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 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.
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.
    Bid time and nature gently spare / The shaft we raise to thee. c. 1803-1882, Ralph Waldo Emerson
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.
14. (meteorology) A relatively small area of precipitation that an onlook can discern from the dry surrounding area.

verb

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.
   Who can I trust after repeatedly being shafted 1992, “Crackers And Cheese”, performed by Eminem
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.
   2018 Christian Cooke as Mickey Argyle, "Episode 2", Ordeal by Innocence (written by Sarah Phelps) 23 minutes Well at least I can get it up. No wonder Mary's going out of her head. Stuck with you sponging off her and not even a decent shafting for her trouble.