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Shift   /ʃɪft/   Listen
Shift

verb
(past & past part. shifted; pres. part. shifting)
1.
Make a shift in or exchange of.  Synonyms: change over, switch.
2.
Change place or direction.  Synonyms: dislodge, reposition.
3.
Move around.  Synonym: transfer.
4.
Move very slightly.  Synonyms: agitate, budge, stir.
5.
Move from one setting or context to another.  "Shift one's attention"
6.
Change in quality.
7.
Move and exchange for another.
8.
Move sideways or in an unsteady way.  Synonyms: careen, tilt, wobble.
9.
Move abruptly.  Synonyms: lurch, pitch.
10.
Use a shift key on a keyboard.
11.
Change phonetically as part of a systematic historical change.
12.
Change gears.
13.
Lay aside, abandon, or leave for another.  Synonyms: change, switch.  "She switched psychiatrists" , "The car changed lanes"



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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

... tumbled a many-complexioned brood of children,—they seemed a very dozen,—and in the doorway, with arms akimbo and hands on massive hips, gaped Jap's mulatto wife, for of such measure was the man. Graves crossed the alley, suppressing such of his five senses as he could shift without, and ascertained that the degenerate Jasper, true to prophecy, was fishing from the dock in ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... world must turn upon its axis, And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails; The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us, The priest instructs, and so our life exhales, A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame, Fighting, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... of the block-machinery brought Maudslay a large accession of fame and business; and the premises in Margaret Street proving much too limited for his requirements, he again resolved to shift his quarters. He found a piece of ground suitable for his purpose in Westminster Road, Lambeth. Little more than a century since it formed part of a Marsh, the name of which is still retained in the adjoining street; its principal productions being bulrushes and willows, which ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... conquer Naples for the Kaiser, stuff the Kaiser into some satisfactory 'Netherlands' or the like, and miraculously do the unfeasible (Fortune perhaps favoring the brave)—may be called the unlikely one! As poor Carteret probably guesses, or dreads;—had he now any choice left. But it was love's last shift! And, by aid of Diana and otherwise, that is the posture in which, at Mainz, 11th October, 1743, we leave ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... day, and to stand the cross fire of the electors on the hustings might have been found an even more distressing ordeal than the cross-questioning of the barristers in the Committees of the House of Commons. "Politics," he used to say, "are all matters of theory—there is no stability in them: they shift about like the sands of the sea: and I should feel quite out of my element amongst them." He had accordingly the good sense respectfully to decline the honour of contesting the representation ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... true, intend to act unjustly. He firmly believed that he was doing right, and defending the cause of the poor against the wealthy. Yet this well-meant meddling probably did far more harm than all the explosions of his evil passions during the whole of his long reign. We could make shift to live under a debauchee or a tyrant; but to be ruled by a busybody is more ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... into the water, while these rangers were fast at his heeles, who looking downe after the noyse, and seeing his cap swimming thereon, supposed that he had desperately drowned himselfe, gaue ouer their farther hunting, and left him liberty to shift away, and ship ouer into Brittaine: for a gratefull remembrance of which deliuery, hee afterwards builded in the place of his lurking, a ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... considering how low conversation runs now among us, it is not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two unavoidable defects: frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so that whoever valueth this gift in himself hath need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endowed have seldom any other revenue, but live upon ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... love you well, I would not hurt you for more lives than one. But for this fair-faced paper of reprieve, We'll have no riddling to make death shift sides: Look, here ends ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... them in the whole history. Or what if it were a little insipid, there was no conjuring that I remember in "Pope Joan;" and the "Lancashire Witches" were without doubt the most insipid jades that ever flew upon a stage; and even these, by the favour of a party, made a shift to hold up their heads.[4] Now, if we have out-done these plays in their own dull way, their authors have some sort of privilege to throw the first stone; but we shall rather chuse to yield the point of dulness, than contend for it, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... labor, would live by their wits only, but they break for want of stock; whereas industry gives comfort, and plenty, and respect. Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. The diligent spinner has a large shift; and, Now I have a sheep and a cow, everybody bids ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... having returned to their respective ships, they got a shift of dry clothes, and some refreshment. Being Sunday, they were afterwards convened by signal on board of the lighthouse yacht, when prayers were read, for every heart upon this occasion felt gladness, and every mind was disposed ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... said Oldbuck, "the sword which my father wore in the year forty-fiveit hath no belt or baldrickbut we'll make shift." ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... least two hours after dark. The boats won't put off while there's light enough to see 'em; and won't hurry anyhow, 'cos if they did the men 'ud have nary much strength left to 'em. Well, they'll take our bearings, of course. Thinks I, owing to what you said, sir, what if we could shift 'em by half a mile or so? The boats 'ud miss us in ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... in focus the central disc is surrounded by an intermittent diffraction pattern, i.e. for instance the system of rings may appear along, and near, three or more radii. If these shift when the points of support of the lens are shifted, flexure may ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... foot-hole system, unless two working faces can be provided for each contracting party, they are likely to lose time through having finished their round of holes before the end of the shift. As blasting must be done outside the contractor's shifts, it means that one shift per day must be set aside for the purpose. Therefore not nearly such progress can be made as where working the face with three shifts. For these reasons, the "hole" system ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... of my game," answered Solmes; "with submission to your lordship, I think if death and her good angel had hold of one of that woman's arms, the devil and I could make a shift to lead her ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... such an evil pre-eminence in this matter? In my opinion it often arises from the fact that house-accommodation is so expensive in the metropolis. In London, it is a habit with many parents, owing to the want of room at home, to make growing lads shift for themselves at a very early age. These boys earn just enough to enable them to secure a bare existence; out of their scanty wages it is impossible to hire a room for themselves; they have to be contented ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... he said, "there weren't no work for us in 'Murrica. Mos' o' the places 'ad closed down ter a shift or two at the mos' per wik. And fer fellers wats used to livin' purty well there weren't enough ter pay board alone. We gotter come or we'd a starved." Of course this was not true ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... signs of distress by flagging. They should be carefully protected at all times from cold cutting winds. In April, should the weather be favourable, the plants may be transferred to the borders, especially should the positions happen to be sheltered. If this is not practicable, another shift will be necessary, this time into pots about 5 in. in diameter. The soil should be similar to that advised for the previous potting, enriched with half a part of horse manure that has been thoroughly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... thankful to him for his good behavior; and he scarcely could believe that she wanted him to go. To go, however, was his destiny; and when he had made a highly laudable and far-away salute, it happened—in the shift of people, and of light, and clothing, which goes on so much in the winter-time—that a little hand came into his, and rose to his lips, with ground of action, not for assault and battery, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... best not to disappoint you," said Bert. "It's a sure thing that we haven't as heavy a line as we've had in other years, and for that reason we'll have to play more of an open game. But we've got a dandy new shift that will give the other fellows something to think about when we spring it on them, and probably Hendricks has one or two aces up his sleeve. I heard him tell Reddy the other day that he was planning a variation of the forward pass that he thought ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield

... righteousness are hard to alter, being deeply seated habits, qualities and activities of the soul. For if the evil affections, not being natural to us, but attacking us from without, be hard to alter when they become habits, how much harder shall it be to shift virtue, which hath been by nature planted in us by our Maker, and hath him for an help-mate, if so be, through our brief endeavour, it shall have been rooted in habit ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... Week, or Se'ennight, make it a Tennight or Decade;—not without results. There are three Decades, then, in each of the months; which is very regular; and the Decadi, or Tenth-day, shall always be 'the Day of Rest.' And the Christian Sabbath, in that case? Shall shift for itself! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... but harsh, like their voices. All the melody is in walk and gesture; they are as graceful as cats, and the women have exactly the 'breasts like pomegranates' of their poetry. A tall Bedaween woman came up to us in the field yesterday to shake hands and look at us. She wore a white sackcloth shift and veil, und weiter nichts, and asked Mrs. Hekekian a good many questions about me, looked at my face and hands, but took no notice of my rather smart gown which the village women admired so much, shook hands again with the air of a princess, wished me health and happiness, and strode ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... with incredulity and surprise. The world is bright before his eye, and he wonders that it should ever wear any other aspect. He cannot understand how the freshness, and vividness, and pomp of human life, should shift into its soberer and sterner forms; and he will not, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... him for some moments; but Clifford had begun to be afraid of the Baroness's looks, and he endeavored, now, to shift himself out of their range. "Why do you never come to see me any more?" she ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... stillness, out of which, in the short pauses, came the faint sound, pleasant and homely, almost rustic, of a plash and a clatter of sabots from some coach-house on the other side of the court. Madame de Vionnet, while Strether sat there, wasn't to shift her posture by an inch. "I don't think you seriously believe in what you're doing," she said; "but all the same, you know, I'm going to treat you quite as ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... time it is easy to survey the whole field of conflict, and to note the plans and strategies of the combatants. Although efforts had hitherto been made to shift the battle-ground from Upper Canada to England, yet, as the Colonial Secretary had discouraged such efforts as unwise, and as an unnecessary interference with the rights of the Provincial Legislature, the matter was not openly ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... entirely. In one of the regions from which they take their source a tree disease may cause a decline; in another, a hurricane may lay the industry low at one quick stroke; and in still another, a rival crop may drain away the life-blood of capital. But for the most part, when times are normal, the shift is gradual; for international trade is conservative, and likes to run where it finds a ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... praying in many a distant home. In and out among the weird and shifting shadows of the outer lines the dim figures of the sentinels stalked with their old "Queen Anne" muskets at the "right-shoulder shift," or tramped back and forth along their beats at the double quick to keep their blood in circulation. At a little distance from the infantry camp the horses of Washington's dragoons and M'Call's mounted Georgians were picketed in groups of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... south of the belts, including a number of narrower and fainter belts, and small light or dark spots. None of them is absolutely fixed in position with reference to others. In other words, all of the spots, belts, and markings shift their places to a perceptible extent, the changes being generally very slow and regular, but occasionally quite rapid. The main belts never entirely disappear, and never depart very far from their mean positions with respect to the equator, but the smaller belts toward the north and south are more ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss

... of the dull rich—those who hold their own by might of possession, conformity, owl-eyed sobriety, and ignorance—Bevy Fleming had become persona non grata. How did she take all this? With that air of superior consciousness which knows that no shift of outer material ill-fortune can detract one jot from an inward mental superiority. The truly individual know themselves from the beginning and rarely, if ever, doubt. Life may play fast and loose about them, running like a racing, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... forever. The iron grasp relaxed: fitfully at first, with grim clutches and snatches at its prey, gripping it the closer because it knew the time was near when all power would go, drop off like a garment, melt away like a stream. The unchanging snow-forms began to shift, the keen outlines wavered, grew indistinct, fell into ruin, as the sun grew warm again, and sent down rays that were no longer like lances of diamond. The glittering face in the hollow of the great drift lost its watchful look, softened, grew dim and blurred; one morning ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards

... seen Bagwell, but did not, and so straight to Redriffe, and home, and late at my business to dispatch away letters, and then home to bed, which I did not intend, but to have staid for altogether at Woolwich, but I made a shift for a bed for Tom, whose bed is gone to Woolwich, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... ships built since 1904, and these are the units that really count in modern warfare. Britain is believed to have lost 6.6 of similar vessels. In light cruisers her loss was only 5.2 per cent, while Germany was weakened nearly 45 per cent in that class of vessel. The figures shift for vessels of an older type, showing a ratio of about two to one against Great Britain. This is due largely to the Dardanelles enterprise and because in some instances older craft were assigned to many dangerous undertakings where the newer ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... partnership involving leaders of business, labor, education, and government to address the training needs of American workers. Thanks to the Task Force, private sector initiatives are now underway in all 50 States of the Union, and thousands of working people have been helped in making the shift from dead-end jobs and low-demand skills to the growth areas of high technology and the service economy. Additionally, a major effort will be focused on encouraging the expansion of private community ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... difficult channels, calling out the depths of water as they go. In spite of these precautions, however, steamers and sailing boats alike often stick fast upon some bank which has, perhaps, been formed in a few hours by a sudden shift of the wind or slight diversion of the current, caused by the tumbling in of a portion of the bank a little higher up-stream. Many of these boats travel long distances, bringing cargoes of coal, cement, machinery, cotton goods, and hardware from the coast for distribution in the provinces of Upper ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... constitootional principles, you know; you went and wiolated the wery framework of society. I had sooner have given away a trifle in charity than done this, I would upon my soul.—If you'll keep fast hold on 'em, gentlemen, I think I can make a shift to tie 'em better than ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... said, putting his drawing-board aside. "I've worked at this quite long enough; let us shift ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... than the words, the soldier halted, and the chief's eyes began again to shift nervously; but soon an expression of mingled lust and ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... in my chaise and could not close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard this sound, 'Toop! toop! toop!' Someone was creeping up to the chaise. I poke my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing but her shift and with her feet bare. . . . 'What do you want, good woman?' I asked. And she was all of a tremble; her face was terror-stricken. . . 'Get up, good man,' said she; 'the people are plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill your merchant. ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... churches are full of soldiers. [Casts his eye round. And in the council-house, too, I observe, You're settled quite at home! Well, well! we soldiers Must shift and suit us ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... out Schofield. "Lively now! Tops'ls on her, and two of you stay aloft to shift tacks if we ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... give you good morning, our niece," said Ermengarde, haughtily indeed, yet with more deference than she seemed at first to have intended, so much did the bearing of Eveline impose respect upon her;—"I find that you have been pleased to shift that chamber which was assigned you, in conformity with the ancient custom of this household, and betake yourself to the apartment of ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... shift unobtrusively about the group while some almost automatic part of his mind began to pick up the thread of Dr. Al's discourse. After a dozen or so sentences, he realized that the evening's theme was the relationship ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz

... worked our jaws loose on the march back to the village, and for days afterward we kept it up. They told me how they had crossed the barrier cliffs in five days, working twenty-four hours a day in three eight-hour shifts with two reliefs to each shift alternating half-hourly. Two men with electric drills driven from the dynamos aboard the Toreador drilled two holes four feet apart in the face of the cliff and in the same horizontal planes. The holes slanted slightly downward. Into these holes the iron rods brought as a part of our ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... allow a man to work inside, we should have a forcing-house. Such a structure is shown in Fig. 207, upon one side of which the manure and soil are already in place. These manure-heated houses are often very efficient, and are a good make-shift until such time as the gardener can afford to put in flue or ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... engine; then he was so fast, that he took the breath away from those who think there is no getting on safely while there is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the only being who has time enough; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. Mr. Lincoln, as it seems to us in reviewing his career, though we have sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, has always waited, as a wise man should, till the right moment ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... the poet, with a smile, "I peeped through the keyhole, before going to bed, and I beheld the most delicious dame in her shift that ever made a bed creak under her ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... mother, with whom she lived. There were a good many fashionable people present, chiefly young fellows, and immediately after tea, a couple of card tables were set, at one of which I had the honour to play with Melinda, who in less than three hours, made shift to plunder me of eight guineas. I was well enough content to lose a little money with a good grace, that I might have an opportunity in the meantime to say soft things, which are still most welcome when attended with good luck; but I was by ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... forth with such force his treacherous conduct to herself, and offering such rewards if they would convey her to her lover at the port they had left, that the honest sailors were moved in her favour, agreed to obey her as their mistress, and hoisting sail, left the master to shift for himself." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... the Knife. None of the students were hurt, and Colonel Handrosan got the procession out of the district promptly, and then dropped some of his men, who have since been re-enforced, to deal with the hooligans. That's still going on, and these riots are like forest fires; you never know when they'll shift and get out of control. I hope the men I brought won't be needed here. Really, they're a reserve for the riot work; I won't commit them, though, until I'm sure ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... glen stands Clach-na-Ossian—"Ossian's Stone"—which tradition held to cover the mortal remains of Scotia's early bard. When the Government troops under General Wade were engaged in carrying a highway through the glen, they found it necessary to shift the position of Ossian's Stone. The detailed narrative of what took ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... coughing or sneezing, like in working or exercising— strains which would cause other trusses to slip or shift out of position— simply cause an instant, automatic increase in the comfortable support a Cluthe Truss ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons

... procure some, for it was getting late, and if they lost the tide, they should be on the water till midnight, and they did not like the appearance of the sky, which was by no means so blue as it had hitherto been. However, the want of bread did not much signify; they could make a shift with Miss Snubbleston's biscuits and poundcakes. But Uncle John did not come out on an excursion of pleasure to make shift; no more did Bagshaw; no more did any of the others. There was nothing else ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... me to the last penny you possess if I should require money," answered Headland. "But I have long given up all hopes of success, and really now think very little about the matter. I am not ambitious of wealth, and when the piping times of peace come round, and I am sent on shore to shift for myself, I shall have saved enough to live on in comfort ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... Sunday shirtsleeves, with their flat faces, and high cheekbones, and their great brown hands with the broken nails. Hunkies. Well, at five the motor cars began whizzing by from the country roads back to Chicago. You have to go back that way. Just then the five o'clock whistles blew and the day shift came off. There was a great army of them, clumping down the road the way they do. Their shoulders were slack, and their lunch pails dangled, empty, and they were wet and reeking with sweat. The motor cars were full of wild phlox ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... instructors of youth qualified to judge the capacities of those who are under their tutelage and care, that Fathom, by dint of his insinuating arts, made shift to pass upon the schoolmaster as a lad of quick parts, in despite of a natural inaptitude to retain his lessons, which all his industry could never overcome. In order to remedy, or rather to cloak this defect ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... son? Truly it is a goodly suit. My coffer is so low that I know not how I shall make shift to pay ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... thunderstruck, her father full of grief, her relations indignant, the authorities all in a ferment, the officers of the Brotherhood in arms. They scoured the roads, they searched the woods and all quarters, and at the end of three days they found the flighty Leandra in a mountain cave, stript to her shift, and robbed of all the money and precious jewels she had carried ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... be difficult to procure a wash-tub. Should you be so situated, however, as not to be able to procure even this, you will be compelled to make shift with a rubbing sheet. For that purpose, a sheet and a pail of water are all you need. The sheet is wetted in the pail and slightly wrung out. The patient steps on a piece of oil-cloth or carpet, and you ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... Shift your standpoint, and in each cringing menial you will see a black token of that Asiatic metamorphosis through which we all have passed. What a picture! Look at yourself as you stand there in purple sublimity, ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... return to the crypt, Durdles falls asleep, dreams that Jasper leaves him, "and that something touches him and something falls from his hand. Then something clinks and gropes about," and the lines of moonlight shift their direction, as Durdles finds that they have really done when he wakens, with Jasper beside him, while the Cathedral clock strikes two. They have had many hours, not less than five, for their expedition. ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang

... intelligent Jane, sighing under the weight of the outfit she was trying to shift to a trunk and a couple ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... other in anything like complimentary terms, that third person was soon let to know that he wasn't making any hit with whichever Captain Sickles it was who had to listen. If it was Norman of the Sirius, he would shift his feet and start to stare intently at the ceiling or the sky; if it was Oliver of the Orion, with a snarl of disgust he would ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... diamonds, they are gone!" exclaimed the Jew, his voice becoming almost frantic with the wild hope that suddenly struck him of being able to shift the danger from his own head to that of another. "The captain of banditti, Stephano Verrina, was here a few hours ago, here, in this very room, and he sat where your ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... blood on its glossy white side. The misery of a weak, helpless, dumb creature is surely one of the saddest of all the mournful sights which this world can show. I lifted the poor dog in my arms as gently as I could, and contrived a sort of make-shift hammock for him to lie in, by gathering up the front of my dress all round him. In this way I took the creature, as painlessly as possible, and as fast as possible, back to ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... the courteous Leatherborough gentleman, too. These were the data of her problem. These two figures stood like opposing knights, (the black and the white,) foremost on the great chess-board of fate. Lizzie was the wearied, puzzled player. She would idly finger the other pieces, and shift them carelessly hither and thither; but it was of no avail: the game lay between the two knights. She would shut her eyes and long for some kind hand to come and tamper with the board; she would open them and see the two knights standing immovable, face to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... in a chamber where we were to make shift with a single bed. Alan looked on me with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the place where he had imagined he had seen Marsh's face peering at him out of the water, and as he walked along the deck, he could hear the noise of hammering in the shipyard made by the men on the night-shift. Tom Arthurs's brain was still working, though Tom ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... our best bower. By 5 A.M. began again to ground, by 6 A.M. fast: at half-past 7 A.M. Captain Flinders went in his boat in search of deeper water and found one place nearer inshore where he thought it advisable to shift the Lady Nelson to, when the tide would permit. Upon the south shore we ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... turns all the great care I have of him not only against himself, but against me also, as far as he can. I cannot blame you that ye cannot conjecture what this may be, for God knows it is only a trick of his idle brain, hoping thereby to shift his trial; but it is easy to be seen, that he would threaten me with laying an aspersion upon me of being in some sort accessory to his crime.... Give him assurance in my name, that if he will yet, before his trial, confess cheerily unto ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various

... your cargo overboard 'till you find you're really sinkin'. 'Tain't likely Miss C. L. G. will care a row of pins for Miss D. L. H.'s buckle. She'll be sendin' out an S. O. S. for her own an' will be ready to join you in flayin' the jeweler. Give the poor varmint time, an' he'll shift things ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... Khlopov and his relations, and his title to the property he held by inheritance was disputed. And she always feared the worst: should she survive Peter, his relations would start proceedings against her, dispossess her and Marusya, and let them shift for themselves. Many a time did Anna mention the matter to Peter in a casual, off-hand way; but he merely smiled his usual smile, listened, and forgot all about ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg

... round, just over my head, and crying pewet, so distinctly, one might almost fancy they spoke. I thought I should have caught one of them, for he flew as though one of his wings was broken, and often tumbled close to the ground; but as I came near, he always made a shift to get away. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... goddess that in rural shrine Dwell'st here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. LADY. Nay, gentle shepherd, ill is lost that praise That is addressed to unattending ears. Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift How to regain my severed company, Compelled me to awake the courteous Echo To give me answer from her mossy couch. COMUS: What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus? LADY. Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth. COMUS. Could that divide you ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton

... sure,' he said, 'whose towel to put you on; but if you'll make shift with something tomorrow morning, Mrs Squeers will arrange that, in the course of the day. My dear, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... still paced back and forth, his unrest written in the furrows of his brow. The jackies, cheerful as ever, worked at their shift of repairing the craft, or, when not at work, played at "duck-on-rock" with chunks of ice. Once a seal appeared in a water-hole. Had he not departed promptly, there would have been fried seal steak and roast seal heart ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... Cape Government, whose difficulties had been increasing, changed its mind, and early in 1882, begged for Gordon's help. Once more he was involved in great affairs: a new field of action opened before him; and then, in a moment, there was another shift of the kaleidoscope, and again he was thrown upon the world. Within a few weeks, after a violent quarrel with the Cape authorities, his mission had come to an end. What should he do next? To what remote corner or what enormous stage, to what self-sacrificing drudgeries or what resounding ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... Insects and several Kinds of Fish: Others, of a nicer Frame, find out proper Beds to [deposite [1]] them in, and there leave them; as the Serpent, the Crocodile, and Ostrich: Others hatch their Eggs and tend the Birth, 'till it is able to shift for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... always does, to foster the slavish vices of dissimulation and dishonesty. The religion brought into the country by the Spanish missionaries concerned itself with their belief, and left their morals to shift for themselves, as it ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... Gadgem or anybody else, his master's positive directions being to keep his abode and his condition a secret from everybody. All the collector knew was that Mr. Temple being too poor to take Todd with him, had left him behind to shift for himself until he could send for him. All the neighborhood knew, to quote Todd's own hilarious chuckle, was that "Miss Jemima Johnsing had two mo' boa'ders; one a sick man dat had los' his job an' de udder a yaller ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... above, their heads and arm are mix'd; Below their planted feet at distance fix'd: Like two strong rafters, which the builder forms Proof to the wintry winds and howling storms; Their tops connected, but at wider space Fix'd on the centre stands their solid base." So in old days. Now wrestlers shift like snakes, And dodge a la DUBOIS, for mightier stakes Than olive, parsley, or the champion's belt Can furnish forth. Long time hath it been felt That two superior champions, age-long foes, At last must come to a conclusive close. "Defiled with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various

... (knowing of his attachment to my niece), in her name, and for her sake, to leave you to shift for yourself?" ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... also, with a profundity that made his chair creak, well-seasoned as it was. Then he said, "But I'll say this, Master Jack, next to going to such places the reading about 'em must come. A penny a week's a penny a week to a poor man, but I reckon I shall have to make shift to take ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... my teeth chattered with cold and fright, and I looked like a drowned rat—he rated me soundly for having gone along the lee side. Medley, however, who had come with the rest, took me down below and made me shift into a dry suit of his clothing. He then persuaded Domingo to mix a fresh pudding, which he took to the cook to boil, so that I was saved from the captain's anger, which would have fallen on my head had it not been forthcoming ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... we may say that the word "box," in the absence of the box, is caused by an image of the box. This may or may not be true—in fact, it is true in some cases but not in others. Even, however, if it were true in all cases, it would only slightly shift our problem: we should now have to ask what causes an image of the box to arise. We might be inclined to say that desire for the box is the cause. But when this view is investigated, it is found that it compels ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... from his position near the forward bulkhead to the compartment amidships, where the pumps were located. A shift of valves followed by a touch on the levers connecting the storage batteries with the electric pumps started the process of ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... experience, to the shrouded ocean of death. Who can linger there and listen, unmoved, to the sublime lament of things that die? Although the great exhibition below endures, yet it is made up of changes, and the spectators shift as often. Each rank of the host, as it advances from the mists of its commencing career, wears a smile caught from the morning light of hope, but, as it draws near to the fatal bourne, takes on a mournful cast from the shadows of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... will doubtless shift uneasily in his grave at the strange story I am called upon to chronicle; a story as strange as a Munchausen tale. It is also incongruous that I, a disbeliever, should be the one to edit the story of Olaf Jansen, whose name is now for ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... Dirty brush contact surface. c. Loose brushes. d. Brushes bearing on wrong point of commutator (to set brushes properly, remove all outside connections from generator, open the shunt field circuit, and apply a battery across the main brushes. Shift the brushes until the armature does not tend to rotate in either direction. This is, of course, a test which must be made with the generator on the test bench). e. Loose connections in the ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... could scarcely pay his club subscriptions, much less live in the style his ancient name demanded. The St. James's chambers had merely been lent to him by a friend, and when the owner returned, the temporary occupant had to shift. Therefore, on the score of economy, he hired the dingy flat and brought up Mrs. Tribb to look after it. The little woman, on her master's account, was disgusted with the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... committee. This legislation is vital as a companion piece to the Budget law. Legal authority for a thorough reorganization of the Federal structure with some latitude of action to the Executive in the rearrangement of secondary functions would make for continuing economy in the shift of government activities which must follow every change in a developing country. Beyond this many of the independent agencies of the Government must be placed under responsible Cabinet officials, if we are to have safeguards of efficiency, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge

... currency earnings. In 1994, Russia's refusal to export Turkmen gas to hard currency markets and mounting debts of its major customers in the former USSR for gas deliveries contributed to a sharp fall in industrial production and caused the budget to shift from a surplus to a slight deficit. With an authoritarian ex-communist regime in power and a tribally based social structure, Turkmenistan has taken a cautious approach to economic reform, hoping to use gas and cotton sales to sustain its inefficient ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... had to shift the luggage to another coach. The driver, who was a slight man, was, for some time, looking rather puzzled at the trunks which lay on the road, and which he had to put on the coach: he tried to lift one of the largest, let it down again, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... do not positively detest this little Chrysantheme, and when there is no repugnance on either side, habit turns into a make-shift of attachment. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... country; and what was worst of all, no desertion from the king's army. It was manifest, said the duke's more timid advisers, that the affair must terminate ill, and the only measure now to be taken was, that the general with his officers should leave the army to shift for itself, and make severally for the most convenient sea- ports, whence they might possibly get a safe passage to the Continent. To account for Monmouth's entertaining, even for a moment, a thought so unworthy of him, and so inconsistent with the character for ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... safe, but should you cross and place your canoe in their hands, there is nothing to prevent them from doing what they please with us. If you will promise not to cross the river till we can get out well on the lake, we may shift our ground, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... cornstalks, stripped long since of fodder, stood with down-hanging ears like rows of soldiers at attention with knapsacks upon their lean backs. It was as if, overnight, Nature had suddenly got in a hurry to shift her scenes and ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... service. His only remaining commissioned officer at the post was the partially disabled cavalry captain, acting temporarily as adjutant, because incapacitated for taking the field. He had waited until the last possible moment, trusting that a shift in conditions might bring back some available officer. Now he had to choose between his duty as commander and as ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... The mental effort of thinking up a menu three times a day that did not include fish and potato for a magnificent creature like Juno weighed heavily on him. He had proposed bringing her down to the house, thinking to shift the burden on to Harriet, but Uncle William had refused sternly. "She wouldn't be comfortable, Andy. The' 's a good deal of soap and water down to your house and she wouldn't like it. You can run up two or three times, easy, to see she's all right. Mebbe you'll ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee

... common to all women. But that "providing" does not have to be done in person. The mother has long since deputed to the father the two main lines of child care—defence and maintenance. She has allowed her responsibility to shift in this matter on the ground that he could do it ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... two-and-one-half-inch pots, and shift on as rapidly as the roots develop. Use, after the first potting, a very rich soil, and give plenty of water. Chrysanthemums are very gross feeders and the secret of success with them lies in keeping them growing on from the ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... public society was in a strange disordered condition, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was being fought and won, and lost—the bells rung in William's victory, in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble almost everybody gambled; as in the Railway mania—not many centuries ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... contrapuntal web of wondrous beauty. At the gates Pamina joins her lover and accompanies him on his journey, which is happily achieved with the help of the flute. Meanwhile Papageno is pardoned his loquacity, but told that he shall never feel the joy of the elect. He thinks he can make shift with a pretty wife instead. The old woman of the trial chamber appears and discloses herself as the charming, youthful Papageno, but only for an instant. He calls after her in vain, and is about to hang himself when the genii remind him of his magic ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... being but "a young prisoner," greatly troubled by the thoughts that "for aught he could tell," his "imprisonment might end at the gallows," not so much that he dreaded death as that he was apprehensive that when it came to the point, even if he made "a scrabbling shift to clamber up the ladder," he might play the coward and so do discredit to the cause of religion. "I was ashamed to die with a pale face and tottering knees for such a cause as this." The belief that his imprisonment might be terminated by death on the scaffold, however groundless, ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables

... their comrades. Further, it would mean the postponing, probably the abandonment, of their enterprise against Nevers, which would be much worse. Cocardasse plucked the Norman to him with a strong finger and thumb, and whispered in his ear: "Get the boys away and shift ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... and shift such pot-flowers as require it into larger pots. In doing this, rub off the moulds and matted fibres from the roots, and throw away part of the outward, loose old earth. Then, having put a little fresh earth into the old pots, ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin

... was that he was not to blame for being President of the United States; that he had taken the oath of office, and was the man responsible to the people for the administration, and he could not, dare not, shift that obligation; and, more than that, he must give the "recognition" due friends to the men who had aided him in breaking down Mr. Conkling's policy at Chicago. If that was a crime he was a criminal. He was President, and he would be true to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... Stretch this straight out between two posts and mark off the distance which the trees are to stand apart, upon it. At each point marked, firmly twist a piece of small wire about the larger one. These should then be soldered in place. It will not do to have them shift. This wire may be rolled upon a ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume

... of the origin of the terms "agnostic" and "agnosticism"; and it will be observed that it does not quite agree with the confident assertion of the reverend Principal of King's College, that "the adoption of the term agnostic is only an attempt to shift the issue, and that it involves a mere evasion" in relation to the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... picture which we have been considering has not sculptural clarity. To the casual observer it bears less resemblance to an alto-relief than to a mosaic; no sooner do distinct patterns spring out of myriad details than they shift under the onlooker's eyes to a totally different form. All that we can claim for the picture is excellence as a piece of impressionism, which one must scan with half-closed eyes at a calculated distance, if one would ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... to remain all the next day at the anchorage to shift them. This detention was very vexatious, for we were not only losing a fair wind, but lying in ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... saw that he must shift for himself. The wheel helped him to rise to his feet; he found he could stand. In a quick turn of feeling, he called, "Courage!" Dieppe looked over at him with a rather ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... respecting the unwelcome information with which we had furnished them as to the whales, not one of which, by some extraordinary chance, we had seen since leaving Neill’s Harbour. As this circumstance was entirely new to us, it seems not unlikely that the whales are already beginning to shift their ground, in consequence of the increased attacks which have been made upon them of late years in ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... of the low casement. "It is awkward shooting, Master Guy," he said quietly, "but I daresay I can make a shift to manage it." Disregarding the furious yells of the crowd, he sent arrow after arrow among the men using the sledges and axes. Many of them had steel caps with projecting rims which sheltered the neck, but as they raised their weapons with both hands over their heads ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty



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