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.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈʃʌtəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌtəl

shuttle (plural shuttles)

1. (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, 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.

2. 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.
3. 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.

   • 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 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 shuttle ceased operations and Metropolitan trains began to terminate at both Amersham and Chesham.

4. 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.

5. 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).
6. A shuttlecock.
7. A shutter, as for a channel for molten metal.

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. It is also often used to describe a rail replacement bus service, or a rail service that does not run the full length of the normal route forcing passengers to transfer, regardless of the number of stops.

• → Dutch: shuttle
• → Italian: shuttle
• → Japanese: シャトル (shatoru)
• → Korean: 셔틀 (syeoteul)

shuttle (third-person singular simple present shuttles, present participle shuttling, simple past and past participle shuttled)

1. (intransitive, transitive) To go or send back and forth between two places.
   • 1982 April 24, Larry Goldsmith, “Freedom of Information: A Heterosexual Privilege?”, in Gay Community News, page 6:

     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 Ward.

2. (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.

• hutlets, lusteth

Borrowed from English shuttle.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃʏ.təl/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: shut‧tle
• Rhymes: -ʏtəl

shuttle m (plural shuttles, diminutive shuttletje n)

1. A space shuttle.

   Synonyms: ruimteveer, ruimtependel

2. A shuttlecock, shuttle.

   Synonyms: pluimbal, vederbal

3. A shuttle bus.

   Synonym: pendelbus

From English shuttle.

• IPA^(key): ^*/ˈʃat.tel/, ^*/ˈʃat.tol/[1]
• Rhymes: -attel, -attol

shuttle m (invariable)

1. space shuttle