| 1. | a long pole forming the body of various weapons, as lances, halberds, or arrows. |
| 2. | something directed or barbed as in sharp attack: shafts of sarcasm. |
| 3. | a ray or beam: a shaft of sunlight. |
| 4. | a long, comparatively straight handle serving as an important or balancing part of an implement or device, as of a hammer, ax, golf club, or other implement. |
| 5. | Machinery. a rotating or oscillating round, straight bar for transmitting motion and torque, usually supported on bearings and carrying gears, wheels, or the like, as a propeller shaft on a ship, or a drive shaft of an engine. |
| 6. | a flagpole. |
| 7. | Architecture.
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| 8. | a monument in the form of a column, obelisk, or the like. |
| 9. | either of the parallel bars of wood between which the animal drawing a vehicle is hitched. |
| 10. | any well-like passage or vertical enclosed space, as in a building: an elevator shaft. |
| 11. | Mining. a vertical or sloping passageway leading to the surface. |
| 12. | Botany. the trunk of a tree. |
| 13. | Zoology. the main stem or midrib of a feather. |
| 14. | Also called leaf. Textiles. the harness or warp with reference to the pattern of interlacing threads in weave constructions (usually used in combination): an eight-shaft satin. |
| 15. | the part of a candelabrum that supports the branches. |
| 16. | to push or propel with a pole: to shaft a boat through a tunnel. |
| 17. | Informal. to treat in a harsh, unfair, or treacherous manner. |
shaft
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shafted
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shaft (shāft)
n.
An elongated rodlike structure, such as the midsection of a long bone.
The section of a hair projecting from the surface of the body.