shafting

1 8.4

Unfair treatment of someone, often by cheating them

noun
/ˈʃæftɪŋ/

Slang

: engaño

She should condemn both sides, but it seems one side is getting "completely shafted" while the other does the "shafting" and complains.

Examples

Everyone feels like they're getting shafted by this deal.
Yeah, well, people feel appropriately, they feel shafted by neoliberalism.
Now if there is evidence that you're having larger minority traders getting shafted, that's that's a different story.
Many employees were upset after realizing they had been shafted on their bonuses this year.
The customers felt they were shafted by the false advertisement of the product.
His decision to cut the contractor's budget left the team feeling shafted and undervalued.

Synonyms

exploitation

vsshafting

79 5.9

Treating people unfairly to get work or money from them

is unfair or dishonest treatment without stressing personal gain

mistreatment

vsshafting

22 4.0

Hurting or being unfair to people and animals

is more specific, implying cheating or dishonest behavior

How Unfair

to abuse

NSFW

344 3.7

exploitation

79 5.9

shafting

Slang

1 8.4

cheating

187 2.1

unfairness

21 2.1

Surface Forms

shafting singular

shaftings plural

Morphology

shafting = shaft (transparent) = shaft + ing

Regular gerund/nominalization of the verb 'shaft' (to treat unfairly), so the meaning is directly derived from that verb form.

Etymology

Shafting comes from the old word shaft, which meant 'long stick' or 'spear'. A helpful way to remember it is to imagine being hit or pushed by a shaft, which feels like being treated badly, so to shaft someone is 'to treat someone unfairly'.