shuttle
English
A weaving shuttle.
Etymology
From a merger of two words:
- Middle English shutel, shotel, schetel, schettell, schyttyl, scutel (“bar; bolt”), from Old English sċyttel, sċutel (“bar; bolt”), equivalent to shut + -le
- Middle English shutel, schetil, shotil, shetel, schootyll, shutyll, schytle, scytyl (“missile; projectile; spear”), from Old English sċytel, sċutel (“dart, arrow”), from Proto-Germanic *skutilaz.
The name for a loom weaving instrument, recorded from 1338, is from a sense of being "shot" across the threads. The back-and-forth imagery inspired the extension to "passenger trains" in 1895, aircraft in 1942, and spacecraft in 1969, as well as older terms such as shuttlecock.
Pronunciation
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈʃʌtəl/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ʌtəl
Noun
shuttle (plural shuttles)
- (weaving) A tool used to carry the woof back and forth between the warp threads on a loom.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Job 7:6:
- My dayes are ſwifter then a weauers ſhuttle, and are ſpent without hope.
- 1638, George Sandys, "A Paraphrase upon Job":
- Like shuttles through the loom, so swiftly glide
- My feather'd hours, and all my hopes deride!.
- 2013 November 11, Claus-Dieter Brauns, “Food and Clothing”, in Mru: Hill People on the Border of Bangladesh, Basel: Birkhäuser, page 131:
- By placing the sword edgewise, the weaver keeps the countershed open, in order to shoot through the shuttle.
-
- The sliding thread holder in a sewing machine, which carries the lower thread through a loop of the upper thread, to make a lock stitch.
- A transport service (such as a bus or train) that goes back and forth between two or more places.
- The shuttle bus runs to the airport on a half-hourly basis form the central station.
- 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 76, 77:
- And until December 2010 the northern stretch of the 'Extension' featured a charming side-show: the CheshamShuttle. [...] But the people of Chesham moaned about the shuttle: the waiting room at Chalfont & Latimer was too hot, or too cold; there were leaves on the line. [...] On 12 Dec 2010 the shuttle ceased operations and Metropolitan trains began to terminate at both Amersham and Chesham.
- Such a transport vehicle; a shuttle bus; a space shuttle.
- 2004, Dawn of the Dead, 1:14:20:
- You're saying we take the parking shuttles, reinforce them with aluminum siding and then head to the gun store where our friend Andy plays some cowboy-movie, jump-on-the-wagon bullshit.
- 2004, Dawn of the Dead, 1:14:20:
- Any other item that moves repeatedly back and forth between two positions, possibly transporting something else with it between those points (such as, in chemistry, a molecular shuttle).
- A shuttlecock.
- A shutter, as for a channel for molten metal.
Usage notes
In its original sense, a shuttle goes back and forth between two places. The term is also used in a broader sense for short-haul transport that may be one-way or have multiple stops (including shared ride or loop), particularly for airport buses; compare loose usage of limousine.
Derived terms
Derived terms
- shuttle box
- shuttle bus, shuttlebus
- shuttle diplomacy
- shuttle driver
- shuttle race
- shuttle run
- shuttle vector
- shuttlecock
- shuttlecraft
- shuttleless
- shuttlewise
- Space Shuttle, space shuttle
- weavers' shuttle
Descendants
- → Dutch: shuttle
- → Italian: shuttle
- → Japanese: シャトル (shatoru)
- → Korean: 셔틀 (syeoteul)
Translations
weaving tool
|
the sliding thread holder in a sewing machine
|
transport service
|
Verb
shuttle (third-person singular simple present shuttles, present participle shuttling, simple past and past participle shuttled)
- (intransitive) To go back and forth between two places.
- (transitive) To transport by shuttle or by means of a shuttle service.
- Synonym: chauffeur
- Guests can be shuttled to a from the hotel for no extra cost.
Translations
to go back and forth
|
to transport by shuttle
|
Anagrams
- hutlets, lusteth
Dutch
Etymology
Borrowed from English shuttle.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈʃʏ.təl/
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: shut‧tle
- Rhymes: -ʏtəl
Noun
shuttle m (plural shuttles, diminutive shuttletje n)
- A space shuttle.
- Synonyms: ruimteveer, ruimtependel
- A shuttlecock, shuttle.
- Synonyms: pluimbal, vederbal
- A shuttle bus.
- Synonym: pendelbus
Italian
Etymology
From English shuttle.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): */ˈʃat.tel/, */ˈʃat.tol/[1]
- Rhymes: -attel, -attol
Noun
shuttle m (invariable)
- space shuttle
References
- shuttle in Luciano Canepari, Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana (DiPI)