shunt
Americanverb (used with object)
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to shove or turn (someone or something) aside or out of the way.
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to sidetrack; get rid of.
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Electricity.
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to divert (a part of a current) by connecting a circuit element in parallel with another.
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to place or furnish with a shunt.
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Railroads. to shift (rolling stock) from one track to another; switch.
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Surgery.
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to divert blood or other fluid by means of a shunt.
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the tube itself.
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to move or turn aside or out of the way.
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(of a locomotive with rolling stock) to move from track to track or from point to point, as in a railroad yard; switch.
noun
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the act of shunting; shift.
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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.
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a railroad switch.
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Surgery. a channel through which blood or other bodily fluid is diverted from its normal path by surgical reconstruction or by a synthetic tube.
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Anatomy. an anastomosis.
adjective
verb
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to turn or cause to turn to one side; move or be moved aside
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railways to transfer (rolling stock) from track to track
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electronics to divert or be diverted through a shunt
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(tr) to evade by putting off onto someone else
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slang (tr) motor racing to crash (a car)
noun
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the act or an instance of shunting
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a railway point
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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
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med a channel that bypasses the normal circulation of the blood: a congenital abnormality or surgically induced
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informal a collision which occurs when a vehicle runs into the back of the vehicle in front
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Conjugated Forms
Present
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has shuntedperfect 3rd person singular
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have shuntedperfect
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are shuntingprogressive
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am shuntingprogressive 1st person singular
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is shuntingprogressive 3rd person singular
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have been shuntingperfect progressive
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has been shuntingperfect progressive 3rd person singular
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shuntingparticiple
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shuntssingular 3rd person
Past
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had shuntedperfect
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were shuntingprogressive plural
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had been shuntingperfect progressive
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was shuntingprogressive singular
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shuntedparticiple
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shuntedsimple
Future
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Shunt aside the uninformed chatter about motive, and what’s left is a story about human loss and local news.
From Washington Post • Jun. 29, 2018
The loss of certain performance spaces, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Shunt Vaults, has made it hard to find a place to stage some events.
From New York Times • Jan. 8, 2016
As detailed in Tom Rubython's picaresque biography Shunt, the Briton broke off from practice at the title-deciding Japanese Grand Prix of 1976 to open his overalls and urinate in front of a packed grandstand.
From BBC • Jun. 15, 2015
Hacked ‘Hundreds’ of Chinese TargetsEven in Erdogan’s Heartland, Some Have Their Doubts RT @niubi: xinhua special page on snowden and how he has exposed the truth about the US "hacker empire" http://t.co/9ma1D1F9fr I liked Shunt.
From Time • Jun. 14, 2013
Shunt dynamos are used for charging storage batteries, and are satisfactory for direct service only when an attendant is constantly at hand to regulate them.
From Electricity for the farm Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water wheel or farm engine by Anderson, Frederick Irving
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
