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Ferry vs Shuttle - What's the difference?

ferry | shuttle |

In transitive terms the difference between ferry and shuttle

is that ferry is to carry or transport over a contracted body of water, as a river or strait, in a boat or other floating conveyance plying between opposite shores while shuttle is to transport by shuttle or by means of a shuttle service.

In intransitive terms the difference between ferry and shuttle

is that ferry is to pass over water in a boat or by ferry while shuttle is to go back and forth between two places.

ferry

English

Noun

(ferries)
  • A ship used to transport people, smaller vehicles and goods from one port to another, usually on a regular schedule.
  • A place where passengers are transported across water in such a ship.
  • * Milton
  • It can pass the ferry backward into light.
  • * Campbell
  • to row me o'er the ferry
  • * around 1900 , O. Henry,
  • She walked into the waiting-room of the ferry , and up the stairs, and by a marvellous swift, little run, caught the ferry-boat that was just going out.
  • The legal right or franchise that entitles a corporate body or an individual to operate such a service.
  • Derived terms

    * ferry bridge * ferry railway

    Descendants

    * French: (l) * Malay: (l) * Swahili: (l)

    Verb

    (en-verb)
  • To carry; transport; convey.
  • * 2007 , Rick Bass, The Lives of Rocks :
  • We ferried our stock in U-Haul trailers, and across the months, as we purchased more cowflesh from the Goat Man — meat vanishing into the ether again and again, as if into some quarkish void — we became familiar enough with Sloat and his daughter to learn that her name was Flozelle, and to visit with them about matters other than stock.
  • To move someone or something from one place to another, usually repeatedly.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) , title= Ideas coming down the track , passage=A “moving platform” scheme
  • To carry or transport over a contracted body of water, as a river or strait, in a boat or other floating conveyance plying between opposite shores.
  • To pass over water in a boat or by ferry.
  • * Milton
  • They ferry over this Lethean sound / Both to and fro.

    See also

    * boat * ship

    Anagrams

    * ----

    shuttle

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (weaving) The part of a loom that carries the woof back and forth between the warp threads.
  • * Sandys
  • Like shuttles through the loom, so swiftly glide / My feathered hours.
  • The sliding thread holder in a sewing machine, which carries the lower thread through a loop of the upper thread, to make a lock stitch.
  • A transport service (such as a bus or train) that goes back and forth between two places, sometimes more.
  • Such a transport vehicle; a shuttle bus; a space shuttle.
  • *2004 , Dawn of the Dead, 1:14:20:
  • *:You're saying we take the parking shuttles, reinforce them with aluminum siding and then head to the gun store where our friend Andy plays some cowboy-movie, jump-on-the-wagon bullshit.
  • Any other item that moves repeatedly back and forth between two positions, possibly transporting something else with it between those points (such as, in chemistry, a molecular shuttle ).
  • A shutter, as for a channel for molten metal.
  • Usage notes

    Strictly speaking, a shuttle goes back and forth between two places. However, the term is also used more generally for short-haul transport that may be one-way or have multiple stops (including shared ride or loop), particularly for airport buses; compare loose usage of (m).

    Verb

    (shuttl)
  • To go back and forth between two places.
  • To transport by shuttle or by means of a shuttle service.
  • Derived terms

    (Derived terms) * (l) * (l), (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l), (l) * ----