What does "shunt" mean?

Additional senses

1. 2.To turn off to one side; especially, to turn off, as a grain or a car upon a side track; to switch off; to shift. For shunting your late partner on to me. T. Hughes.
2. 3.(Elec.) To provide with a shunt; as, to shunt a galvanometer.
3. 4.To go aside; to turn off.
4. 5.(Railroad) A turning off to a side or short track, that the principal track may be left free.
5. 6.(Elec.) A conducting circuit joining two points in a conductor, or the terminals of a galvanometer or dynamo, so as to form a parallel or derived circuit through which a portion of the current may pass, for the purpose of regulating the amount passing in the main circuit.
6. 7.(Gunnery) The shifting of the studs on a projectile from the deep to the shallow sides of the grooves in its discharge from a shunt gun. Shunt dynamo (Elec.), a dynamo in which the field circuit is connected with the main circuit so as to form a shunt to the letter, thus employing a portion of the current from the armature to maintain the field. -- Shunt gun, a firearm having shunt rifling. See under Rifling.