Shaft
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks? --"Theme from Shaft" (1971)
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Shaft can refer to:
- The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
- The long, narrow, central body of a spear, arrow, or javelin.
- Anything cast or thrown as a spear or javelin.
- Any long thin object, such as the handle of a tool, one of the poles between which an animal is harnessed to a vehicle, the driveshaft of a motorized vehicle with rear-wheel drive, an axle, etc.
- A beam or ray of light.
- The main axis of a feather.
- A vertical or inclined passage sunk into the earth as part of a mine
- A ventilation or heating conduit; an air duct.
- Any column or pillar, particularly the body of a column between its capital and pedestal.
- The main cylindrical part of the penis.
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Usage notes
In Early Modern English, the shaft referred to the entire body of a long weapon, such that an arrow's "shaft" was composed of its "tip", "stale" or "steal", and "fletching". Palsgrave (circa 1530) glossed the French j[']empenne as "I fether a shafte, I put fethers upon a steale". Over time, the word came to be used in place of the former "stale" and lost its original meaning.
In fiction:
- 1971 novel by Ernest Tidyman about an African-American private detective
- Shaft (1971 film), a film based on the novel
- Shaft (album), the soundtrack for the film, recorded by Isaac Hayes
- "Theme from Shaft", performed by Isaac Hayes
- John Shaft, the titular character of the franchise
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Shaft" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
