Root vs Shaft - What's the difference?
root | shaft |
The part of a plant, generally underground, that absorbs water and nutrients.
A root vegetable.
*
The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place.
The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place.
The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated.
The primary source; origin.
* John Locke
(arithmetic) Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression.
(arithmetic) A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, “the root of” is often abbreviated to “root”).
(analysis) A zero (of a function).
(graph theory, computing) The single node of a tree that has no parent.
(linguistic morphology) The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.
(philology) A word from which another word or words are derived.
(music) The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.
The lowest place, position, or part.
* Milton
* Southey
(computing) In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure.
(computing) The person who manages accounts on a UNIX system.
(computing) The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories. (rfex)
(computing, slang, transitive) To break into a computer system and obtain root access.
To fix the root; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.
* Mortimer
* '>citation
To be firmly fixed; to be established.
* Bishop Fell
To turn up or dig with the snout.
(by extension) To seek favour or advancement by low arts or grovelling servility; to fawn.
To rummage, to search as if by digging in soil.
To root out; to abolish.
* Shakespeare
* Bible, Deuteronomy xxix. 28
(Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, slang) To have sexual intercourse.
(Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, slang) An act of sexual intercourse.
(Australia, New Zealand, vulgar, slang) A sexual partner.
(intransitive, with for, US) To cheer to show support for.
* 1908 ,
(US) To hope for the success of. Rendered as 'root for'.
(lb) The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
* , (Geoffrey Chaucer):
* , (Roger Ascham):
The long, narrow, central body of a spear, arrow, or javelin.
*
(lb) Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
* , (John Milton):
* , (Vicesimus Knox):
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.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=
, title= A beam or ray of light.
* 1912 , (Willa Cather), :
The main axis of a feather.
(lb) The long narrow body of a lacrosse stick.
A long, narrow passage sunk into the earth, either natural or for artificial.
A vertical passage housing a lift or elevator; a liftshaft.
A ventilation or heating conduit; an air duct.
(lb) Any column or pillar, particularly the body of a column between its capital and pediment.
* , (Ralph Waldo Emerson):
The main cylindrical part of the penis.
The chamber of a blast furnace.
(slang) To fuck over; to cause harm to, especially through deceit or treachery.
to equip with a shaft.
(slang) To fuck; to have sexual intercourse with.
As a proper noun root
is .As a noun shaft is
(lb) the entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.As a verb shaft is
(slang) to fuck over; to cause harm to, especially through deceit or treachery.root
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) ; cognate with wort and radix.Noun
(en noun)- This tree's roots can go as deep as twenty metres underground.
- two fields which should have been sown with roots in the early summer were not sown because the ploughing had not been completed early enough.
- Root damage is a common problem of overbrushing.
- The root is the only part of the hair that is alive.
- He dyed his hair black last month, so the grey roots can be seen.
- The love of money is the root of all evil.
- They were the roots out of which sprang two distinct people.
- The cube root of 27 is 3.
- Multiply by root 2.
- (Busby)
- deep to the roots of hell
- the roots of the mountains
Synonyms
* (source) basis, origin, source * (zero of a function) zero * (word from which another is derived) etymon * superuser (), root account, root userAntonyms
* (zero of a function) poleHolonyms
* (zero of a function) kernelDerived terms
* cube root * functional root * put down roots * root canal * root cause * rootkit * roots * roots music * rootsy * square root * strictly roots * take root * taproot * root gapVerb
(en verb)- We rooted his box and planted a virus on it.
- In deep grounds the weeds root deeper.
- If any irregularity chanced to intervene and to cause misapprehensions, he gave them not leave to root and fasten by concealment.
See also
* (linguistics) stemEtymology 2
From (etyl) . Cognate with rodent. Cognate with Dutch wroeten.Verb
(en verb)- A pig roots the earth for truffles.
- rooting about in a junk-filled drawer
- I will go root away the noisome weeds.
- The Lord rooted them out of their land and cast them into another land.
Usage notes
* The Australian/New Zealand sexual sense is somewhat milder than fuck but still quite coarse, certainly not for polite conversation. The sexual sense will often be understood, unless care is taken with the context to make the rummage sense clear, or 'root through' or 'root around' is used. The past participle rooted'' is equivalent to ''fucked'' in the figurative sense of broken or tired, but ''rooting'' is only the direct verbal sense, not an all-purpose intensive like ''fucking .Synonyms
* (rummage) dig out, root out, rummage * (have sexual intercourse) screw, bang, drill (US), shag (British) - See alsoDerived terms
* root about * rooted * root out * root upNoun
(en noun)- Fancy a root ?
Usage notes
* The Australian/New Zealand sexual sense of root'' is somewhat milder than ''fuck'' but still quite coarse, certainly not for polite conversation. The normal usage is ''to have a root or similar.Synonyms
* (act of sexual intercourse) screw (qualifier), shag (UK); see also * (sexual partner) screw (US)Etymology 3
Possibly an alteration of , influenced by hootVerb
(en verb)- Let me root', '''root''', ' root for the home team,
- I'm rooting for you, don't let me down!
Synonyms
* (cheer) barrack (qualifier), cheer onAnagrams
* ----shaft
English
Noun
(en noun)- His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, /
- A shaft hath three principal parts, the stele, the feathers, and the head.
- 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 .
- And the thunder, / Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, / Perhaps
- Some kinds of literary pursuitshave been attacked with all the shafts of ridicule.
Lee S. Langston, magazine=(American Scientist)
The Adaptable Gas Turbine, passage=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.}}
- 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.
- Bid time and nature gently spare /
Usage notes
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". empenne as "I [[feather, 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.Synonyms
* stale, stail, steal, stele, steel (arrows, spears ) * mineshaft (vertical underground passage )Verb
(en verb)- Your boss really shafted you by stealing your idea like that.
- Turns out my roommate was shafting my girlfriend.