Shuttle Definition

shŭtl

shuttled, shuttles, shuttling

noun

shuttles

A smaller but similar thread holder used in tatting, etc.

Webster's New World

A traveling back and forth over an often short route, as by an airplane, train, bus, etc.

Kept the planes in a 24-hour shuttle.

Webster's New World

An instrument containing a reel or spool of the woof thread, used in weaving to carry the thread back and forth between the warp threads.

Webster's New World

Any of several devices having a similar to-and-fro action.

Webster's New World

The route so traveled.

Webster's New World

Synonyms:

verb

shuttled, shuttles, shuttling

To move or go by or as by means of a shuttle.

Webster's New World

To move or go back and forth rapidly or frequently.

Webster's New World

To transport, especially by a shuttle.

Shuttle a scientific payload to an orbiting space station.

American Heritage

Synonyms:

Origin of Shuttle

From Old English scytel (“dart, arrow"), from Proto-Germanic *skutilaz (compare Old Norse skutill (“harpoon")), from *skut- (“project") (see shoot). Name for loom weaving instrument, recorded from 1338, is from a sense of being "shot" across the threads. The back-and-forth imagery inspired the extension to "passenger trains" in 1895, aircraft in 1942, and spacecraft in 1969, as well as older terms such as shuttlecock.

From Wiktionary
Middle English shitel, shutel weaver's shuttle from Old English scytel, scutel dart skeud- in Indo-European roots

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition