to move something so that it is no longer open
"Please shut the door; it’s getting cold."
The store shuts at 9 p.m., so we need to hurry.
✦ Old English scyttan “to fasten a door with a bolt,” related to “shoot,” originally meaning “push a bar.”
closed; not open
The kitchen window is shut, but I can still hear the traffic.
Keep the gate shut so the dog doesn’t run out.
✦ Early use as past participle of the verb “shut,” later functioning as an adjective meaning “closed.”
a vehicle, usually a bus, van, or train, that makes frequent short trips back and forth between two fixed places, especially to carry passengers
We caught the free shuttle from the hotel to the airport.
A blue shuttle pulls up every fifteen minutes outside the terminal.
✦ from Middle English shitel, meaning “device that moves back and forth,” later applied to vehicles that do the same action
an informal, shortened name for a shuttlecock, the feathered or plastic projectile hit back and forth in badminton
Sam picked up the fallen shuttle and served again.
The plastic shuttle is more durable than the feathered one.
✦ shortened from “shuttlecock,” first recorded in the 19th century
a reusable spacecraft that carries astronauts or cargo between Earth and space and returns to be used again
The crew boarded the shuttle at dawn for its journey to the International Space Station.
During re-entry, the heat shields protected the shuttle from extreme temperatures.
✦ extension of the weaving sense: like a loom’s shuttle, the craft travels back and forth between two points—Earth and orbit
to move or transport someone or something back and forth between two places repeatedly
Volunteers used their cars to shuttle supplies between the warehouse and the shelter.
All day, taxis shuttled tourists from the port to the ancient ruins.
✦ verb sense developed from the noun: like the loom tool, the action involves repeated back-and-forth movement
a small boat-shaped tool that carries the weft thread back and forth through the warp threads on a loom
The weaver slid the wooden shuttle smoothly across the loom.
If the shuttle is too heavy, the fabric may distort.
✦ Old English scytel “dart, arrow,” later applied to a weaving tool that shoots thread through the loom
