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Shift   /ʃɪft/   Listen
noun
Shift  n.  
1.
The act of shifting. Specifically:
(a)
The act of putting one thing in the place of another, or of changing the place of a thing; change; substitution. "My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air."
(b)
A turning from one thing to another; hence, an expedient tried in difficulty; often, an evasion; a trick; a fraud. "Reduced to pitiable shifts." "I 'll find a thousand shifts to get away." "Little souls on little shifts rely."
2.
Something frequently shifted; especially, a woman's under-garment; a chemise.
3.
The change of one set of workmen for another; hence, a spell, or turn, of work; also, a set of workmen who work in turn with other sets; as, a night shift.
4.
In building, the extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
5.
(Mining) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
6.
(Mus.) A change of the position of the hand on the finger board, in playing the violin.
To make shift, to contrive or manage in an exigency. "I shall make shift to go without him." "(They) made a shift to keep their own in Ireland."


verb
Shift  v. t.  (past & past part. shifted; pres. part. shifting)  
1.
To divide; to distribute; to apportion. (Obs.) "To which God of his bounty would shift Crowns two of flowers well smelling."
2.
To change the place of; to move or remove from one place to another; as, to shift a burden from one shoulder to another; to shift the blame. "Hastily he schifte him(self)." "Pare saffron between the two St. Mary's days, Or set or go shift it that knowest the ways."
3.
To change the position of; to alter the bearings of; to turn; as, to shift the helm or sails. "Carrying the oar loose, (they) shift it hither and thither at pleasure."
4.
To exchange for another of the same class; to remove and to put some similar thing in its place; to change; as, to shift the clothes; to shift the scenes. "I would advise you to shift a shirt."
5.
To change the clothing of; used reflexively. (Obs.) "As it were to ride day and night; and... not to have patience to shift me."
6.
To put off or out of the way by some expedient. "I shifted him away."
To shift off, to delay; to defer; to put off; to lay aside.
To shift the scene, to change the locality or the surroundings, as in a play or a story. "Shift the scene for half an hour; Time and place are in thy power."


Shift  v. i.  
1.
To divide; to distribute. (Obs.) "Some this, some that, as that him liketh shift."
2.
To make a change or changes; to change position; to move; to veer; to substitute one thing for another; used in the various senses of the transitive verb. "The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon." "Here the Baillie shifted and fidgeted about in his seat."
3.
To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to contrive; to manage. "Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave their companions to shift as well as they can."
4.
To practice indirect or evasive methods. "All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions."
5.
(Naut.) To slip to one side of a ship, so as to destroy the equilibrum; said of ballast or cargo; as, the cargo shifted.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Shift" Quotes from Famous Books



... mind, let him think so," Ranson answered, fervently. "Don't discourage him. That's the only evidence I've got on my side. He says he fired to disarm the man, and that he saw him shift his gun to his left hand. It was the shot that the man fired when he held his gun in his left that broke the colonel's arm. Now, everybody knows I can't hit a barn with my left. And as for having any wounds concealed about my person"—Ranson turned his hands like a conjurer to show the front and ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... it do to put Morley there, on trial?" suggested Ned. "Then we could shift Ward to third and try ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... dignity and hide their time. They are, on the contrary, an enterprising gang of desperadoes, who for the nonce may find it convenient to play the role of high life and dignified pretension, but who, on the slightest change of circumstances, are ready for any shift, any seeming degradation or humiliation, any temporary lowering of their claims, in order to rise higher on the next wave. There is also enough of the savage and barbarous element of character remaining in the Southern bogus chivalry to make them, like the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... other kind of testing. One proves the foundation by building upon it. If the stone be soft, if it be slender, if it be imperfectly bedded, it will crumble, it will shift, it will sink. But this stone has borne all the weight that the world has laid upon it, and borne it up. Did any man ever come to Jesus Christ with a sorrow that He could not comfort, with a sin that He could not forgive, with a soul that He could not save? And we may ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... latter half of the second century A.D. Marucchi, in the same place, says that in the porticoes of the upper temple are traces of mosaic which he attributes to the gift of Sulla mentioned by Pliny XXXVI, 189, but in urging this he must shift delubrum Fortunae to the Cortina terrace and ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin


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