# shuttle

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈʃʌtəl/ · frequency rank #8,349

## Definitions
1. A tool used to carry the woof back and forth between the warp threads on a loom.
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.
4. Such a transport vehicle; a shuttle bus; a space shuttle.
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.

## Etymology
From a merger of two words:
* Middle English shutel, shotel, schetel, schettell, schyttyl, scutel (“bar; bolt”), from Old English sċyttel, sċutel (“bar; bolt”), equivalent to shut + -le
* Middle English shutel, schetil, shotil, shetel, schootyll, shutyll, schytle, scytyl (“missile; projectile; spear”), from Old English sċytel, sċutel (“dart, arrow”), from Proto-Germanic *skutilaz.
The name for a 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.

## Easily confused with
- **subtle** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/shuttle-vs-subtle)
- **settle** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/settle-vs-shuttle)
- **Seattle** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/seattle-vs-shuttle)
- **shuffle** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/shuffle-vs-shuttle)
- **shutter** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/shutter-vs-shuttle)
- **scuttle** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/scuttle-vs-shuttle)

## Common misspellings (9)
`hsuttle`, `shhuttle`, `shtutle`, `shutle`, `shutlte`, `shuttel`, `shuttlle`, `sshuttle`, `suhttle`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/shuttle