shunt

Meaning

Verb

1. (transitive) To cause to move (suddenly), as by pushing or shoving; to give a (sudden) start to.
2. (transitive) To divert to a less important place, position, or state.
3. (transitive) To provide with a shunt.
4. (transitive) To move data in memory to a physical disk.
5. (transitive) To divert electric current by providing an alternative path.
6. (transitive) To move a train from one track to another, or to move carriages, etc. from one train to another.
7. (British, informal, transitive) To have a minor collision, especially in a motor car.
8. (transitive) To divert the flow of a body fluid.
9. (British, dialectal, obsolete, transitive) To turn aside or away; to divert.
10. (UK, historical) To carry on arbitrage between the London stock exchange and provincial stock exchanges.

Noun

1. An act of moving (suddenly), as due to a push or shove.
2. A connection used as an alternative path between parts of an electrical circuit.
3. The shifting of the studs on a projectile from the deep to the shallow sides of the grooves in its discharge from a shunt gun.
4. An abnormal passage between body channels.
5. A passage between body channels constructed surgically as a bypass; a tube inserted into the body to create such a passage.
6. A switch on a railway used to move a train from one track to another.
7. (British, informal) A minor collision between vehicles.

Synonyms

bypass

divert

switch

shift

turn

electrical shunt

deflect

avert

swerve

branch

by-passing

crash

depart

digress

distributary

drill

eschew

exchange

feeder road

interchange

lead off

leg

🦵

multiple

parallel

parallel connection

paralleling

replace

shelter

shunt circuit

sidetrack

side-track

substitute

swap

switch over

swop

tap

transfer

transition

turn away

turn-out

waylay

yaw

branch off

side-way

down pipe

shunt connection

angle tee

subcircuit

shunt off

split-flow

Translations

shunt

rangieren

Shunt

conduit collectif

desviar

shunt

conduit collecteur

smistare

rangeren

derivatore

court-circuiter

Nebenschluß

verschieben

garer

derivación

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ʃʌnt/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: shunten

Inherited from Middle English: shonen

Inherited from Old English: sċunian

Inherited from Middle English: shunden

Inherited from Old English: sċyndan

Inherited from Old English: *sċunettan

Cognate with Danish: skynde

Cognate with Icelandic: skynda

Cognate with Middle High German: schünden

Cognate with Norwegian: skynde

Cognate with Swedish: skynda

Cognate with Sanskrit: स्कन्दति

Cognate with Albanian: shkund

Cognate with Middle English: shunt

In summary

From Middle English schonten, schunten (“to jerk, swerve; to dodge, escape”), either:
* possibly a back-formation from Middle English schonen (“to avoid, refuse, hate, fear”), from Old English sċunian, sċyniġan; see shun. Or
* an alteration of Middle English *schunden, *schynden, from Old English sċyndan, sċendan (“to hasten, hurry”) (as in āsċyndan (“to remove, take away”), from Proto-West Germanic *skundijan, from Proto-Germanic *skundijaną (“to impel, hasten”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewt- (“to rattle, shake”).
* from unrecorded Old English *sċunettan, a derivative of sċunian (“to shun, avoid”).
As regards the noun sense, compare Middle English shunt (“swerve; sudden jerk”), derived from the verb.