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Duct vs Shaft - What's the difference?

duct | shaft |

In obsolete terms the difference between shaft and duct

is that shaft is the entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow while duct is guidance; direction.

duct

English

(Wikipedia)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A pipe, tube or canal which carries gas or liquid from one place to another.
    • heating and air-conditioning ducts
  • An enclosure or channel for electrical cable runs.
  • (obsolete) Guidance; direction.
    • otherwise to express His care and love to mankind, viz., in giving and consigning to them His written word for a rule and constant director of life, not leaving them to the duct of their own inclinations. — Henry Hammond.

    Derived terms

    * ductal * ducted * ducting * ductor * duct tape * Mullerian ducts * Wolffian ducts

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To channel something through a duct (or series of ducts)

    • shaft

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (lb) The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
  • * , (Geoffrey Chaucer):
    • His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, /
  • * , (Roger Ascham):
    • A shaft hath three principal parts, the stele, the feathers, and the head.
  • The long, narrow, central body of a spear, arrow, or javelin.
  • *
    • 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 .
  • (lb) Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
  • * , (John Milton):
    • And the thunder, / Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, / Perhaps
  • * , (Vicesimus Knox):
    • Some kinds of literary pursuitshave been attacked with all the shafts of ridicule.
  • 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= Lee S. Langston, magazine=(American Scientist)
    • , title= 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.}}
  • A beam or ray of light.
  • * 1912 , (Willa Cather), :
    • 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.
  • 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):
    • Bid time and nature gently spare /
  • The main cylindrical part of the penis.
  • The chamber of a blast furnace.

    • 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 )

    Derived terms

    (der top) * to give someone the shaft * to get the shaft (der bottom)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (slang) 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.
  • (slang) To fuck; to have sexual intercourse with.
    • Turns out my roommate was shafting my girlfriend.

    Anagrams

    * English transitive verbs