shuttle

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun badminton equipment consisting of a ball of cork or rubber with a crown of feathers
  2. noun public transport that consists of a bus or train or airplane that plies back and forth between two points
  3. noun bobbin that passes the weft thread between the warp threads

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.

In classic literature

Synonyms

shuttlecock, bird, birdie

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