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Shaft vs Trunk - What's the difference?

shaft | trunk |

As nouns the difference between shaft and trunk

is that shaft is (lb) the entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow while trunk is drink.

As a verb shaft

is (slang) to fuck over; to cause harm to, especially through deceit or treachery.

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.

    trunk

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Part of a body.
  • #The (usually single) upright part of a tree, between the roots and the branches: the tree trunk.
  • #The torso.
  • #The extended and articulated nose or nasal organ of an elephant.
  • #The proboscis of an insect.
  • (lb) A container.
  • #A large suitcase, usually requiring two persons to lift and with a hinged lid.
  • #*
  • #*:There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. Mail bags, so I understand, are being put on board. Stewards, carrying cabin trunks , swarm in the corridors.
  • #A box or chest usually covered with leather, metal, or cloth, or sometimes made of leather, hide, or metal, for holding or transporting clothes or other goods.
  • #*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • #*:locked up in chests and trunks
  • # The luggage storage compartment of a sedan/saloon style car.
  • (lb) A channel for flow of some kind.
  • # A circuit between telephone switchboards or other switching equipment.
  • #A chute or conduit, or a watertight shaft connecting two or more decks.
  • #A long, large box, pipe, or conductor, made of plank or metal plates, for various uses, as for conveying air to a mine or to a furnace, water to a mill, grain to an elevator, etc.
  • #(lb) A long tube through which pellets of clay, pas, etc., are driven by the force of the breath.
  • #*(James Howell) (c.1594–1666)
  • #*:He shot sugarplums at them out of a trunk .
  • #(lb) A flume or sluice in which ores are separated from the slimes in which they are contained.
  • In software projects under source control: the most current source tree, from which the latest unstable builds (so-called "trunk builds") are compiled.
  • The main line or body of anything.
  • :
  • #(lb) A main line in a river, canal, railroad, or highway system.
  • #(lb) The part of a pilaster between the base and capital, corresponding to the shaft of a column.
  • A large pipe forming the piston rod of a steam engine, of sufficient diameter to allow one end of the connecting rod to be attached to the crank, and the other end to pass within the pipe directly to the piston, thus making the engine more compact.
  • Shorts used for swimming (swim trunks).
  • Synonyms

    * boot (UK, Aus ) * (upright part of a tree) tree trunk * (nose of an elephant) proboscis

    Derived terms

    * tree trunk * trunk road

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To lop off; to curtail; to truncate.
  • * Spenser
  • Out of the trunked stock.
  • (mining) To extract (ores) from the slimes in which they are contained, by means of a trunk.