shuttle
/ˈʃʌtəl/
shuttle noun: a tool used to carry the woof back and forth between the warp threads on a loom.
Noun
shuttle (plural shuttles)
- A tool used to carry the woof back and forth between the warp threads on a loom.
- My dayes are ſwifter then a weauers ſhuttle, and are ſpent without hope.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 7:6
- Like shuttles through the loom, so swiftly glide
My feather'd hours, and all my hopes deride!.1638, George Sandys, A Paraphrase upon Job
- 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 from the central station.
- And until December 2010 the northern stretch of the 'Extension' featured a charming side-show: the Chesham Shuttle. [...] 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...2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 76, 77
- Such a transport vehicle; a shuttle bus; a space shuttle.
- 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.
Verb
shuttle (third-person singular simple present shuttles, present participle shuttling, simple past and past participle shuttled)
- To go or send back and forth between two places.
- On several occasions during the next several months my attempts to see the logs were met alternately with this denial of their existence or a denial of my right to see them. After being shuttled from station to headquarters and headquarters to station, I finally consulted with GCNs attorney, John...1982 April 24, Larry Goldsmith, “Freedom of Information: A Heterosexual Privilege?”, in Gay Community News, page 6
- To transport by shuttle or by means of a shuttle service.
- Guests can be shuttled to and from the hotel for no extra cost.
- It may get even busier in town when a sleek train service called the Brightline debuts this summer, shuttling travelers between nearby West Palm Beach and Miami.2017 March 1, Hannah Seligson, “Where to get hip in Palm Beach”, in CNN
- Synonyms:
- chauffeur
shuttle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
shuttle in Hindi
- weaving tool
- ढरकी ḍharkī
- transport service
- शटल śaṭal
shuttle in Tamil
- ஓடம், ஊடூசி
shuttle in Marathi
- शटल, शटल करण्यासाठी, शटल करणे
shuttle in Urdu
- weaving tool
- ڈَھرْکی ḍharkī
- transport service
- شَٹَل śaṭal
More languagesFewer languages
- shuttle in Bengali
- শাটল śaṭol
- shuttle in Telugu
- నాడె nāḍe
- shuttle in Malayalam
- നെയ്ത്തുകോൽ, ബാഡ്മിൻറൻ പോലുളള കളി, ഓടം, നൂൽനാഴി
- shuttle in Kannada
- ಅಟ್ಟೆ
- shuttle in Punjabi
- ਸ਼ਟਲ, ਸ਼ਟਲ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
- shuttle in Gujarati
- શટલ, શટલ કરવા માટે, શટલ કરવા
- shuttle in Odia
- ଶଟଲ୍, ଶଟଲ, ସଟଲ୍
- shuttle in Sanskrit
- तसर tásara, मल्लिक mallika
- shuttle in Assamese
- মাকো makü
- shuttle in Nepali
- शटल, सटल, शटल गर्न
- shuttle in Pashto
- ماکو mākú
- shuttle in Arabic
- مَكُّوك makkūk, مَكُوك makūk
- shuttle in Thai
- กระสวย grà-sǔai
- shuttle in Vietnamese
- thoi
- shuttle in Myanmar
- လွန်း lwan:, လွန်းပြန် lwan:pran
Examples of shuttle in a sentence
- By placing the sword edgewise, the weaver keeps the countershed open, in order to shoot through the shuttle.2013 November 11, Claus-Dieter Brauns, “Food and Clothing”, in Mru: Hill People on the Border of Bangladesh, Basel: Birkhäuser, page 131:
- After being shuttled from station to headquarters and headquarters to station, I finally consulted with GCNs attorney, John Ward.1982 April 24, Larry Goldsmith, “Freedom of Information: A Heterosexual Privilege?”, in Gay Community News, page 6:
Synonyms of shuttle
Forms of shuttle
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | shuttles |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | shuttles |
| present participle | shuttling |
| past participle | shuttled |
| past | shuttled |
Origin of shuttle
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.
Words formed from shuttle
Phrases with shuttle
Words that rhyme with shuttle
Questions about shuttle
- What does shuttle mean?
- Shuttle means a tool used to carry the woof back and forth between the warp threads on a loom.
- What is shuttle in Hindi?
- Shuttle in Hindi is ढरकी (ḍharkī), शटल (śaṭal). See Shuttle meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use shuttle in a sentence?
- By placing the sword edgewise, the weaver keeps the countershed open, in order to shoot through the shuttle.
- What part of speech is shuttle?
- Shuttle can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce shuttle?
- Shuttle is pronounced /ˈʃʌtəl/ (US).
- What is the plural of shuttle?
- The plural of shuttle is shuttles.
Words near shuttle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shuttle (page history and authors); shuttle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shuttle (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shuttle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shuttle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shuttle (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shuttle (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); shuttle (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); तसर (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); shuttle (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shuttle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shuttle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shuttle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.