shuttle

plural shuttles

1. businessA tool used to carry the woof back and forth between the warp threads on a loom.

   My dayes are ſwifter then a weauers ſhuttle, and are ſpent without hope.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 7:6

   2 more examples

   Like shuttles through the loom, so swiftly glide My feather'd hours, and all my hopes deride!.

   1638, George Sandys, A Paraphrase upon Job

   By placing the sword edgewise, the weaver keeps the countershed open, in order to shoot through the shuttle.

   2013 November 11, Claus-Dieter Brauns, “Food and Clothing”, in Mru: Hill People on the Border of Bangladesh, Basel: Birkhäuser, page 131

2. The sliding thread holder in a sewing machine, which carries the lower thread through a loop of the upper thread, to make a lock stitch.
3. A transport service (such as a bus or train) that goes back and forth between two or more places.

   The shuttle bus runs to the airport on a half-hourly basis from the central station.

   1 more example

   And until December 2010 the northern stretch of the 'Extension' featured a charming side-show: the Chesham Shuttle. [...] But the people of Chesham moaned about the shuttle: the waiting room at Chalfont & Latimer was too hot, or too cold; there were leaves on the line. [...] On 12 Dec 2010 the shuttle ceased operations and Metropolitan trains began to terminate at both Amersham and Chesham.

   2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 76, 77

4. Such a transport vehicle; a shuttle bus; a space shuttle.

   You're saying we take the parking shuttles, reinforce them with aluminum siding and then head to the gun store where our friend Andy plays some cowboy-movie, jump-on-the-wagon bullshit.

   2004, Dawn of the Dead, 1:14:20

5. Any other item that moves repeatedly back and forth between two positions, possibly transporting something else with it between those points (such as, in chemistry, a molecular shuttle).
6. A shuttlecock.
7. A shutter, as for a channel for molten metal.

present singular third person shuttles · participle present shuttling · participle past shuttled · past shuttled

1. intransitivetransitiveTo go or send back and forth between two places.

   1 more example

   On several occasions during the next several months my attempts to see the logs were met alternately with this denial of their existence or a denial of my right to see them. After being shuttled from station to headquarters and headquarters to station, I finally consulted with GCNs attorney, John Ward.

   1982 April 24, Larry Goldsmith, “Freedom of Information: A Heterosexual Privilege?”, in Gay Community News, page 6

2. transitiveTo transport by shuttle or by means of a shuttle service.

   Guests can be shuttled to and from the hotel for no extra cost.

   1 more example

   It may get even busier in town when a sleek train service called the Brightline debuts this summer, shuttling travelers between nearby West Palm Beach and Miami.

   2017 March 1, Hannah Seligson, “Where to get hip in Palm Beach”, in CNN

   Synonyms: chauffeur