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Webster 1913 Edition

Shift

Shift

(shĭft)
,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Shifted
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Shifting
.]
[OE.
shiften
,
schiften
, to divide, change, remove. AS.
sciftan
to divide; akin to LG. & D.
schiften
to divide, distinguish, part Icel.
skipta
to divide, to part, to shift, to change, Dan
skifte
, Sw.
skifta
, and probably to Icel.
skīfa
to cut into slices, as n., a slice, and to E.
shive
,
sheave
, n.,
shiver
, n.]
1.
To divide; to distribute; to apportion.
[Obs.]
To which God of his bounty would
shift

Crowns two of flowers well smelling.
Chaucer.
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].
Piers Plowman.
Pare saffron between the two St. Mary’s days,
Or set or go
shift
it that knowest the ways.
Tusser.
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.
Sir W. Raleigh.
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.
Shakespeare
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.
Shakespeare
6.
To put off or out of the way by some expedient.
“I shifted him away.”
Shak.
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.
Swift.

Shift

,
Verb.
I.
1.
To divide; to distribute.
[Obs.]
Some this, some that, as that him liketh
shift
.
Chaucer.
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.
Shakespeare
Here the Baillie
shifted
and fidgeted about in his seat.
Sir W. Scott.
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.
L'Estrange.
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.
Sir W. Raleigh.
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
.

Shift

,
Noun.
[Cf. Icel.
skipti
. See
Shift
,
Verb.
T.
]
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.
Sir H. Wotton.
(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.”
Macaulay.
I 'll find a thousand
shifts
to get away.
Shakespeare
Little souls on little
shifts
rely.
Dryden.
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.”
Shak.

[They]
made a shift
to keep their own in Ireland.
Milton.

Webster 1828 Edition

Shift

SHIFT

,
Verb.
I.
1. To move; to change place or position. Vegetables are not able to shift and seek nutriment.
2. To change its direction; to vary; as, the wind shifted from south to west.
3. To change; to give place to other things.
4. To change clothes particularly the under garment or chemise.
5. To resort to expedients for a livelihood, or for accomplishing a purpose; to move from one thing to another, and to seize one expedient when anohter fails.
Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave their companions to shift as well as they can. L'Estrange.
6. To practice indirect methods.
7. To seek methods of safety.
Nature teaches every creature how to shift for itself in cases of danger.

Definition 2024

Shift

Shift

See also: shift

English

A side view of a common QWERTY keyboard, where a Shift can be seen among various other buttons.
The Shift key.

Alternative forms

Noun

Shift ‎(plural Shifts)

  1. (computing) A modifier key whose main function is shifting between two or more functions of any of certain other keys (usually by pressing Shift and the other button simultaneously).

Synonyms

shift

shift

See also: Shift

English

Noun

shift ‎(plural shifts)

  1. (historical) a type of women's undergarment, a slip
    Just last week she bought a new shift at the market.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book V, chapter x
      No; without a gown, in a shift that was somewhat of the coarsest, and none of the cleanest, bedewed likewise with some odoriferous effluvia, the produce of the day's labour, with a pitchfork in her hand, Molly Seagrim approached.
    • 1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools, volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, OCLC 519072825, page 202:
      At length, one night, when the company by some accident broke up much sooner than ordinary, so that the candles were not half burnt out, she was not able to resist the temptation, but resolved to have them some way or other. Accordingly, as soon as the hurry was over, and the servants, as she thought, all gone to sleep, she stole out of her bed, and went down stairs, naked to her shift as she was, with a design to steal them […]
    • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 47
      Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.
  2. a change of workers, now specifically a set group of workers or period of working time
    We'll work three shifts a day till the job's done.
  3. an act of shifting; a slight movement or change
    • Sir H. Wotton
      My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air.
    There was a shift in the political atmosphere.
    • 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times:
      The generational shift Mr. Obama once embodied is, in fact, well under way, but it will not change Washington as quickly — or as harmoniously — as a lot of voters once hoped.
  4. (US) the gear mechanism in a motor vehicle
    Does it come with a stick-shift?
  5. Alternative spelling of Shift ‎(“the modifier button of computer keyboards”)
    If you press shift-P, the preview display will change.
  6. (computing) a bit shift
  7. (baseball) The infield shift.
    Teams often use the shift against this lefty.
  8. (Ireland, crude slang, often with the definite article, usually uncountable) The act of sexual petting.
  9. (archaic) A contrivance, device to try when other methods fail
    • 1596, Shakespeare, History of King John
      If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
      I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
      As good to die and go, as die and stay.
  10. (archaic) a trick, an artifice
    • 1593, Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
      And if the boy have not a woman's gift
      To rain a shower of commanded tears,
      An onion will do well for such a shift
    • Macaulay
      Reduced to pitiable shifts.
    • Shakespeare
      I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.
    • Dryden
      Little souls on little shifts rely.
  11. In building, the extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
  12. (mining) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

shift ‎(third-person singular simple present shifts, present participle shifting, simple past and past participle shifted)

  1. (transitive) To change, swap.
    • 2012 March 1, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 87:
      But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.
  2. (transitive) To move from one place to another; to redistribute.
    We'll have to shift these boxes to the downtown office.‎
    • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
      The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.
  3. (intransitive) To change position.
    She shifted slightly in her seat.‎
    His political stance shifted daily.‎
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To change (one's clothes); also to change (someone's) underclothes.
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, II.ii.2:
      'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired […].
    • Shakespeare
      As it were to ride day and night; and […] not to have patience to shift me.
  5. (intransitive) To change gears (in a car).
    I crested the hill and shifted into fifth.‎
  6. (typewriters) To move the keys of a typewriter over in order to type capital letters and special characters.
  7. (computer keyboards) To switch to a character entry mode for capital letters and special characters.
  8. (transitive, computing) To manipulate a binary number by moving all of its digits left or right; compare rotate.
    Shifting 1001 to the left yields 10010; shifting it right yields 100.‎
  9. (transitive, computing) To remove the first value from an array.
  10. (transitive) To dispose of.
    How can I shift a grass stain?‎
  11. (intransitive) To hurry.
    If you shift, you might make the 2:19.‎
  12. (Ireland, vulgar, slang) To engage in sexual petting.
  13. To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to contrive; to manage.
    • L'Estrange
      Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave their companions to shift as well as they can.
  14. To practice indirect or evasive methods.
    • Sir Walter Raleigh
      All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions.

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Portuguese

Noun

shift m (plural shifts)

  1. shift (button on a keyboard)

Etymology

From shift.

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