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aid chiefly of a knife, sword, or dagger; the hilt. This brandish'dagger I'll bury to the haft in her fair breast. Dryden.

A caviler; a wrangler. [Obs.] Baret.

The hypoptilum.

A passage, usually vertical, for admitting fresh air into a mine or a tunnel.

-- Bur"schen*schaft`ler (#), -schaf`ter (#), n.

An arrow without a barb, for shooting at butts; an arrow. [Also but shaft.] Shak.

An intermediate shaft; esp., one which receives motion from a line shaft in a factory and transmits it to a machine.

The first shaft sunk. Raymond.

A secondary shaft, as in a sliding change gear for an automobile; a cam shaft operated by a two-to-one gear in an internal- combustion engine. It is generally a shaft moving more or less independently of the other parts of a machine, as, in some marine engines, a shaft, driven by a small auxiliary engine, for independe…

An arrow. [Obs.]

A shaft that oscillates on its journals, instead of revolving, -- usually carrying levers by means of which it receives and communicates reciprocating motion, as in the valve gear of some steam engines; -- called also rocker, rocking shaft, and way shaft.

arrow. His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, That lean he wax, and dry as is a shaft. Chaucer. A shaft hath three principal parts, the stele [stale], the feathers, and the head. Ascham.

Furnished with a shaft, or with shafts; as, a shafted arch.

Shafts, collectivelly; a system of connected shafts for communicating motion.

A measure of about six inches. [Obs.]

A rock shaft.

, an instrument for measuring angles, esp. for ascertaining the dip of strata. -- Angle shaft (Arch.), an enriched angle bead, often having a capital or base, or both. -- Curvilineal angle, one formed by two curved lines. -- External angles, angles formed by the sides of any right-lined figure, when the sides are pr…

The small hollow curvature given to the top or bottom of the shaft of a column where it expands to meet the edge of the fillet; -- called also the scape. Parker.

A crossbow, consisting of a steel bow set in a shaft of wood, furnished with a string and a trigger, and a mechanical device for bending the bow. It served to throw arrows, darts, bullets, etc. [Written also arbalet and arblast.] Fosbroke.

Toward one side; in a slanting direction; obliquely. [The shaft] drove through his neck aslant. Dryden.