Meanings
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Thesaurus
Etymology
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.