Gear vs Shaft - What's the difference?

In obsolete terms the difference between gear and shaft

is that gear is business matters; affairs; concern while shaft is the entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.

As nouns the difference between gear and shaft

is that gear is equipment or paraphernalia, especially that used for an athletic endeavor while shaft is the entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.

As verbs the difference between gear and shaft

is that gear is to provide with gearing; to fit with gears in order to achieve a desired gear ratio while shaft is to fuck over; to cause harm to, especially through deceit or treachery.

As an adjective gear

is (mostly British (Scouse)) great or fantastic.

gear

English

Noun

(wikipedia gear)

(uncountable) equipment or paraphernalia, especially that used for an athletic endeavor.

Clothing; garments.

* Spenser

Array thyself in thy most gorgeous gear .

(obsolete) Goods; property; household items.

(Chaucer)

* Robynson (More's Utopia)

Homely gear and common ware.

(countable) a wheel with grooves (teeth) engraved on the outer circumference, such that two such devices can interlock and convey motion from one to the other.

(countable) a particular combination or choice of interlocking gears, such that a particular gear ratio is achieved.

(countable) A configuration of the transmission of a motor car so as to achieve a particular ratio of engine to axle torque

(slang) recreational drugs

* 2003 , Marianne Hancock, Looking for Oliver (page 90)

Have you got any gear ? Dominic, have you got any acid?

(uncountable, archaic) stuff.

* 1662 , , Book III, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 113:

"When he was digged up, which was in the presence of the Magistracy of the Town, his body was found entire, not at all putrid, no ill smell about him, saving the mustiness of the grave-Clothes, his joynts limber and flexible, as in those that are alive, his skin only flaccid, but a more fresh grown in the room of it, the wound of his throat gaping, but no gear nor corruption in it; there was also observed a Magical mark in the great toe of his right foot, viz. an Excrescency in the form of a Rose."

(obsolete) Business matters; affairs; concern.

* Spenser

Thus go they both together to their gear .

(obsolete, UK, dialect) Anything worthless; nonsense; rubbish.

(Wright)

* Latimer

That servant of his that confessed and uttered this gear was an honest man.

Synonyms

* cog, cogwheel, gearwheel

Derived terms

* change gear * change gears * high gear * gear lever * gear shift * gear up * shift gear * shift gears * up a gear

Verb

(en verb)

(engineering) To provide with gearing; to fit with gears in order to achieve a desired gear ratio.

(engineering) To be in, or come into, gear.

to dress; to put gear on; to harness.

Adjective

(en adjective)

(mostly British (Scouse) ) great or fantastic

Anagrams

* * * * ----

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