Word Direct Answers

What does "shuttle" mean?

Shuttle: 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.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A shutter, as for a channel for molten metal. [R.] Shuttle box (Weaving), a case at the end of a shuttle race, to receive the shuttle after it has passed the thread of the warp; also, one of a set of compartments containing shuttles with different colored threads, which are passed back and forth in a certain order, according to the pattern of the cloth woven. -- Shutten race, a sort of shelf in a loom, beneath the warp, along which the shuttle passes; a channel or guide along which the shuttle passes in a sewing machine. -- Shuttle shell (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of marine gastropods of the genus Volva, or Radius, having a smooth, spindle- shaped shell prolonged into a channel at each end.
  2. 3.To move backwards and forwards, like a shuttle. I had to fly far and wide, shutting athwart the big Babel, wherever his calls and pauses had to be. Carlyle.

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