shunt

American  

[shuhnt] / ʃʌnt /

verb (used with object)

1. to shove or turn (someone or something) aside or out of the way.

2. to sidetrack; get rid of.

3. Electricity.

   1. to divert (a part of a current) by connecting a circuit element in parallel with another.

   2. to place or furnish with a shunt.

4. Railroads. to shift (rolling stock) from one track to another; switch.

5. Surgery.

   1. to divert blood or other fluid by means of a shunt.

   2. the tube itself.

6. to move or turn aside or out of the way.

7. (of a locomotive with rolling stock) to move from track to track or from point to point, as in a railroad yard; switch.

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noun

1. the act of shunting; shift.

2. Also called bypass.  Electricity. a conducting element bridged across a circuit or a portion of a circuit, establishing a current path auxiliary to the main circuit, as a resistor placed across the terminals of an ammeter for increasing the range of the device.

3. a railroad switch.

4. Surgery. a channel through which blood or other bodily fluid is diverted from its normal path by surgical reconstruction or by a synthetic tube.

5. Anatomy. an anastomosis.

adjective

1. Electricity. being, having, or operating by means of a shunt.

   a shunt circuit; a shunt generator.

shunt British  

/ ʃʌnt /

verb

1. to turn or cause to turn to one side; move or be moved aside

2. railways to transfer (rolling stock) from track to track

3. electronics to divert or be diverted through a shunt

4. (tr) to evade by putting off onto someone else

5. slang (tr) motor racing to crash (a car)

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noun

1. the act or an instance of shunting

2. a railway point

3. electronics a low-resistance conductor connected in parallel across a device, circuit, or part of a circuit to provide an alternative path for a known fraction of the current

4. med a channel that bypasses the normal circulation of the blood: a congenital abnormality or surgically induced

5. informal a collision which occurs when a vehicle runs into the back of the vehicle in front

Other Word Forms

• shunter noun
• unshunted adjective

Etymology

Origin of shunt

1175–1225; (v.) Middle English schunten, shonten to shy (said of horses); (noun) Middle English, derivative of the v.; akin to shun

Explanation

A shunt is a small tube that goes inside the body to drain fluid. It also means to divert in a general way, like if you shunt the thought of tubes in your body, you think about rainbows and kittens instead. Although shunt usually refers to a tube that drains blood or other fluid out of a part of the body, shunt also means to bypass. If a train is shunted, it’s diverted from the main track onto a side track. The word may have come from shun, as in “turn away,” which is what a shunt essentially does. It turns something away from where it was headed.

Example Sentences

Thankfully, he walked away from a huge shunt and will have time to recover fully before we go racing again in early May.

From BBC • Mar. 29, 2026

Surgical treatment usually involves placement of a shunt.

From Los Angeles Times • May 23, 2025

The bouncer is intimidating, the attendants shunt customers to digital kiosks, and there are no attractive, informative displays for browsing.

From Slate • Apr. 19, 2025

"NPH is difficult to diagnose, and it can also be hard to safely evaluate the effect of shunt surgery to drain the fluid in the brain," continues Michael.

From Science Daily • Oct. 17, 2023

Shin did not know it, but to pass safely through the fence he needed a device that could shunt the flow of current from the fence to the ground.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden

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