shaft

SH'AFT, noun L. scapus; from the root of shape, from setting, or shooting, extending.]1. An arrow; a missile weapin; as the archer and the shaft So loftly was the pile, a Parthian bowWhith vigor drawn must send the shaft below. Dryden.2. In mining, a pit or long narrow opening or entrance into a mine. [This may possibly be a different word, as in German it is written schacht, Dan. skaegte.]3. In architecture, the shaft of a column is the body of it, between the base and the capital.4. Any thing straight; as the shaft of a steeple, and many other things.5. The stem or stock of a fether or quill.6. The pole of a carriage, sometimes called tongue or neap. The thills of a chaise or geg are also called shafts.7. The handle of a weapon.Shaft, or white-shaft, a species of Trochilus or humming bird, having a bill twenty lines in levgth, and two long fethers in the middle of its tail