shunt

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   railways: to move a train or carriage onto another track, especially in or near a station

   The locomotive began to shunt empty carriages onto a siding.

2. 2
   verb

   to move or divert someone or something to another, often less important, place or position

   The committee shunted the difficult proposal into a later meeting.

3. 3
   noun

   medicine: a passage or implanted tube that diverts blood or another bodily fluid

   The surgeon inserted a shunt to drain excess fluid from the brain.

4. 4
   noun

   electricity: a low-resistance path connected in parallel to divert part of a current

   The meter uses a shunt to carry most of the electrical current around its sensing element.

Appears in

From Middle English schonten or schunten, 'to jerk, swerve, or dodge,' of uncertain Germanic origin. Railway use developed in the nineteenth century from the idea of moving something aside; electrical and medical nouns later extended the same idea to a path that diverts a current or fluid.

Topics

External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary