Plural of shaft; long, narrow tunnels in mines going deep underground, or long bars or rods (like the shaft of an arrow or a column).
From Old English 'sceaft,' related to Germanic words meaning 'to create' or 'stick.' Used for spear-shafts, arrow-shafts, and eventually mine shafts.
Mineshafts can go thousands of feet deep, and some of the deepest are in South Africa where they descend over 2 miles into the earth—the heat down there becomes so intense that special cooling systems are needed, creating alien-like working conditions.
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