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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



... grip on the bills when he saw something—something which instantly turned him stiff and rigid and deathly cold all over, leaving him without will-power or strength to move his head or shift his gaze. Over the white, plastered wall alongside his bed an unearthly red glow sprang up, turning a deeper, angrier red as it spread and widened. Against this background next stood out two perpendicular masses like the broad shadows ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... enemy in front. He had seen the mighty sweep of the fire and he knew that it would need but the slightest shift of the wind to send a wall of flame down upon him from which he would have to run for his life. He did not, of course, know that the fire had already crossed the road behind him. But even if he had, he would probably have kept on trusting to the chance of getting ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... Maitre Ranulph's life came now. Here he was penned up in a little island, chained to a criminal having the fame of a martyr. It was not to be borne. Why not leave it all behind? Why not let his father shift for himself, abide his own fate? Why not leave him the home, what money he had laid by, and go-go-go where he could forget, go where he could breathe. Surely self-preservation, that was the first law; surely no known code of human practice ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... before the end of the first mile; for I had no money to pay for a lift on the coach, and I knew, besides, that they would not be passing that way for several hours to come. So, with aching back and knees, I made shift to limp along, bent almost double, and ended by sitting down for a couple of hours, and looking about me, in a country which would have seemed dreary enough, I suppose, to any one but a freshly-liberated captive, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... resolution in this strait was as follows: to pass close to the Swallow with all their sails, and receive her broadside before they returned a shot; if disabled by this, or if they could not depend on sailing, then to run on shore at the point, and every one to shift for himself among the negroes; or failing these, to board, and blow up together, for he saw that the greatest part of his men were drunk, passively courageous, and unfit ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms


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