shunt

[shuhnt]

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.

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

/ 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)

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of shunt¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of shunt¹

C13: perhaps from shunen to _shun

Example Sentences

Since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Putin had been shunted to the fringes of summit group photos.

From Los Angeles Times

His pitch to the membership was to move away from the tried-and-tested, with a decisive shunt to the left and a more confrontational communication style.

From BBC

Currently the only way for trains to cross the Strait is to have the coaches shunted onto ferries and carried over the sea in a 30-minute journey.

From BBC

One time, a teenage girl, writing for her high school newspaper, was roughly shunted aside by the sportswriter pack before a Cincinnati Reds game.

From Salon

Hundreds of journalists were accredited for a process that would, surely, dominate headlines in France throughout its three-month duration and force a queasy public to confront a crime too often shunted to the sidelines.

From BBC

Related Words

• curve 
• dangle 
• flap 
• fluctuate 
• hang 
• lurch 
• pitch 
• pivot 
• rotate 
• sway 
• swivel 
• turn 
• twirl 
• veer 
• wave 
• whirl 
• wiggle 
• wobble