Added 9 October 2026
shunt
/ʃʌnt/ noun
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about shunt at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
-
A passage by which a bodily fluid (especially blood) is diverted from one channel to another.
an arteriovenus shunt
- A conductor having low resistance in parallel with another device to divert a fraction of the current.
- Implant consisting of a tube made of plastic or rubber; for draining fluids within the body.
verb
Origin
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 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.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)