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shafts

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The long wooden bodies of arrows; used in martial, epic, and mythological verse to evoke archery and ancient battle.

Detailed Definition
A shaft is the long straight body of an arrow, spear, or similar weapon. In poetry it can also mean an arrow itself, so readers may need the weapon sense here.
Example
Example in poetry:
“With the shafts he most abhorred” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Mask of Anarchy”; Cupid’s shafts wound lovers in classical poetry; Sunbeams fall in golden shafts through the trees; The archer’s shafts make a literal threat, while “shafts of light” is metaphorical
Additional Notes
The quoted line uses shafts in a weapon-specific sense that is less familiar than the everyday meaning of a long pole or rod.; Found in the poem, The Explanation by Rudyard Kipling
Also Known As
arrows projectiles darts shafts of fate
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