shunt
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ʃʌnt/
ipa: /ʃʌnt/
ipa: /ʃənt/
ipa: /ʃant/
rhymes: -ʌnt
Forms: form: shunts
form: shunting
form: shunted
form: shunted
Etymology: From Middle English schonten, schunten (“to jerk, swerve; to dodge, escape”), either:
* possibly a back-formation from Middle English schonen (“to avoid, refuse, hate, fear”), from Old English sċunian, sċyniġan; see shun. Or
* an alteration of Middle English *schunden, *schynden, from Old English sċyndan, sċendan (“to hasten, hurry”) (as in āsċyndan (“to remove, take away”), from Proto-West Germanic *skundijan, from Proto-Germanic *skundijaną (“to impel, hasten”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewt- (“to rattle, shake”).
* from unrecorded Old English *sċunettan, a derivative of sċunian (“to shun, avoid”).
As regards the noun sense, compare Middle English shunt (“swerve; sudden jerk”), derived from the verb.
Senses: examples: text: For we are all shunting—shunting—shunting / We're all shunting in this queer world of ours. / Nations are shunted like to our railway carriages: / As Napoleon shunted la belle France into war; / Princes are shunted into royal marriages; / Kings and Queens are shunted just like a railway car.
ref: [1877?], Jacques Geal, “We’re All Shunting”, in John Diprose, compiler, The Railway Song Book, London: Diprose & Bateman, […], →OCLC, page 13, column 1:
text: The comet was burning blue in the distance, like a sickly torch, when I first sighted him, but he begun to grow bigger and bigger as I crept up on him. […] Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so I shunted to one side and tore along. By and by I closed up abreast of his tail.
ref: 1907 December, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven: Taken from His Own MS.”, in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, volume CXVI, number DCXCI, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, →OCLC, page 41, column 2:
synonyms: shove
glosses: To cause to move (suddenly), as by pushing or shoving; to give a (sudden) start to.
examples: text: Here in England it is, thank God! the custom for us to shunt ourselves off the grand trunk railroad of business, in tearing up and down which our lives are mainly passed, into some quiet siding once every year. […] [W]hen July is running into August, and everything is breaking up, you feel that your business for the season—be it in commerce, law, or literature—is achieved, and that the time for your being temporarily shunted has arrived.
ref: 1862 October, “Q.”, “On Being Shunted”, in London Society. An Illustrated Magazine of Light and Amusing Literature for the Hours of Relaxation, volume II, number IX, London: Office, 49 Fleet Street, E.C., →OCLC, page 334, column 1:
text: This important question of the acquisition of Native lands has been treated as a perfect shuttlecock in the hands of the Government. […] So far as we know, it has not even been circulated amongst the Natives, so that it would be a monstrous thing to pass it into law this session. This question will therefore be necessarily shunted—the one question that is admitted to be of supreme importance to the Colony of New Zealand. Then, the question of the Native Land Courts is another of those which have been shunted.
ref: 1893 July 12, John Hall, “House of Representatives. First Readings—Financial Statement.”, in New Zealand. Parliamentary Debates. Fourth Session of the Eleventh Parliament. Legislative Council and House of Representatives, volume 79, Wellington: S. Costall, government printer, →OCLC, page 415, column 1:
text: Even as the new king appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in a downpour to view a weather-attenuated flyby, much of the press attention focused on Harry’s absence. (Charles’s heir, Prince William, was shunted off to the side with his family.)
ref: 2023 May 6, James Poniewozik, “Charles III Was Crowned King. But Can He Ever Be the Star?”, in The New York Times:
glosses: To divert to a less important place, position, or state.
examples: text: to shunt a galvanometer
text: Routine preoperative shunting of tumor patients is no longer common practice because many patients remain shunt free after tumor removal. Dias and Albright reported a series of 58 patients with posterior fossa tumors and hydrocephalus. Twenty-five patients were shunted preoperatively, 17 had external ventricular drains (EVDs) and 16 had no preoperative ventricular catheterization. Twenty-four of the 33 patients not initially shunted remained shunt free at long-term follow-up.
ref: 2008, Richard C. E. Anderson, Hugh J. L. Garton, John R. W. Kestle, “Treatment of Hydrocephalus with Shunts”, in A. Leland Albright, Ian F. Pollack, P. David Adelson, edited by Birgitta Brandenburg, Principles and Practice of Pediatric Neurosurgery, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Thieme Medical Publishers, →ISBN, page 112, column 1:
glosses: To provide with a shunt.
examples: text: A momentary power spike had caused a blip, forcing the backup system to shunt Carella's current work into a safety file. It was standard operating procedure, a decision made by the online computer itself.
ref: 2010, Don Pendleton, Mike Linaker, “Prologue”, in System Corruption (Don Pendleton’s The Executioner), Toronto, Ont.: Gold Eagle, →ISBN:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To move data in memory to a physical disk.
examples: text: The method of running an electric motor herein set out, which consists in starting the motor with the two halves of its armature in series with a resistance in a two-pole field, then gradually cutting out the resistance, then including the resistance and shunting one-half the motor, then opening the circuit of the shunted half and throwing the two halves of the motor in multiple in a four-pole field, and finally, cutting out the resistance.
ref: 1895 April 2, Merle J. Wightman, Regulation of Continuous-current Motors, US Patent 542,667, page 2, column 2:
topics: business
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
energy
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: To divert electric current by providing an alternative path.
examples: text: Porter, run over while shunting a luggage train, in consequence of his getting entangled in shunting-rope.
ref: 1846, “Report”, in Report of the Officers of the Railway Department to the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade: With Appendices I. & II. For the Years 1844–45. […] (House of Commons of the United Kingdom, 1846 Session, Accounts and Papers; 15 (Railway Department)), volume XXXIX, London: Printed by W[illiam] Clowes and Sons, […], for Her Majesty's Stationery Office, →OCLC, class no. 3 (Accidents Attended with Personal Injury to Servants of the Company, under Circumstances Not Involving Danger to the Public), page xxi:
text: But despite its plague of tunnels, the run-in on this route is of unusual interest to the locomotive enthusiast: besides the hordes of self-important saddle-tanks shunting in the extensive yards, there was at one time the chance of seeing those slender little North London engines, with their large outside cylinders and no visible storage place for coal, and also an occasional South Eastern locomotive sporting a lot of polished brass.
ref: 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 704:
text: On arrival at Spiez, the locomotive (No. 206) was immediately uncoupled and drew ahead to enable an Italian through coach from Interlaken to Milan to be loose shunted (with passengers aboard and controlled by means of its handbrake) on to the front of the train.
ref: 1953 August, J. G. Click, “The Lötschberg Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 515:
topics: rail-transport
railways
transport
glosses: To move a train from one track to another, or to move carriages, etc. from one train to another.
examples: text: The main argument for the use of culpability as a categorizer is that some accidents can be said to be independent of the behaviour of at least one of the drivers, for example, being shunted when having stopped for a red light (in a slow and controlled manner, at least).
ref: 2017, Anders af Wåhlberg, “Traffic Accident Involvement Taxonomies”, in Driver Behaviour and Accident Research Methodology: Unresolved Problems (Human Factors in Road and Rail Transport), Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN:
topics: road
transport
glosses: To have a minor collision, especially in a motor car.
examples: text: There are times when one has no alternative other than to attempt to shunt the cerebrospinal fluid into the pleural cavity, a potential space, which may occasionally be capable of absorbing the fluid.
ref: 1987, Anthony J. Raimondi, “Hydrocephalus”, in Pediatric Neurosurgery: Theoretical Principles; Art of Surgical Techniques, New York, N.Y.; Berlin: Springer-Verlag, →DOI, →ISBN, page 474, column 2:
topics: medicine
sciences
surgery
glosses: To divert the flow of a body fluid.
glosses: To turn aside or away; to divert.
topics: business
finance
glosses: To carry on arbitrage between the London stock exchange and provincial stock exchanges.
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from shunt (verb)
word: nonshunted
sense: Terms derived from shunt (verb)
word: shuntable
sense: Terms derived from shunt (verb)
word: shunter
sense: Terms derived from shunt (verb)
word: shunting
sense: Terms derived from shunt (verb)
word: unshunted