# skift
## English
### Etymology

From Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”), related to skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”) (which see for more) and skiffle.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /skɪft/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪft

### Noun

skift (plural skifts)
* (dialectal, including Scotland, Shetland and Appalachia) Synonym of skiff (“light shower of rain or snow; light dusting of snow or ice (on ground, water, etc)”)
** 1834, record quoted in 1956, Norman E. Eliason, Tarheel Talk, page 294:
    Last night we had a little skift of snow.
** 1857, “A Winter in the South”, in Harper's Magazine, page 726:Well, there was a little skift of snow on the ground, and I follered up a ridge of the mountain […]
** 1915, Ed Blair, History of Johnson County, Kansas, page 61:It was quite cold that morning; just a little skift of snow. We had not gone a mile from camp before we were overtaken by a score or more of boys going home to Missouri. They had been up to the Wakarusa camp — the pro-slavery troops were ...
** 1919, Peter McArthur, The Red Cow and Her Friends, Createspace Independent Pub, page 244:A “Skift” of Snow LAST night we had a “skift” of snow, and it was interesting to notice the effect on the summer-born creatures of the farm. A plump young kitten that had not seen the pesky stuff before came to meet me from the stable ...
** 1939, Coll, Hall:We just got out on the top and there was a little skift of snow a-fallin'.
** 2001, Cincinnati Magazine, page 80:[...] money from the Appalachian Community Development Association and from Cincinnati's Tall Stacks Festival, so I rented a car and stayed in a motel instead of sleeping on somebody's floor. There was just a little skift of snow on the ground.
** 2010, Mark Parman, A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting, page 84:A skift of snow had fallen overnight on the ski trails, and Paul had yet to groom them and erase the tracks in the new snow.

### Verb

skift (third-person singular simple present skifts, present participle skifting, simple past and past participle skifted)
* (dialectal, of rain or snow) Synonym of skiff (“fall lightly or briefly, and lightly cover the ground”)
** 1911, Gene Stratton-Porter, The Harvester, page 46:A mourning dove had returned to him through snow, skifting over cold earth. It settled on a limb and began dressing its plumage.
** 1921, Ernest Rhys, The Haunters & the Haunted: Ghost Stories and Tales of the Supernatural, page 153:
    […] Violent gusts of wind came in rapid succession down the sound of Kilbrannan ; and a skifting rain, flung fitfully but fiercely from the huge black clouds as they hurried along before the tempest that ...
** 1997, Southern Poetry Review, volumes 37-38, page 20:A crest of last night's snow skifts the powerlines, lengths of it falling to clean asphalt broken and askew, shattered grammar of a landscape whose unheard mutter might explain.
** 2013, Carlene Cross, Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith:THE PIGEONS SCATTERED as I walked onto the University of Washington campus, crossing the snow skifted plaza of Red Square with an important document tucked under my arm.
** 2019, Elizabeth Mac Donald, A Matter of Interpretation, Fairlight Books, →ISBN:Surely a sound like this could only bring cold and skifting rain: it seemed past belief that such a lonely sound could come hurtling through the darkness on a breath as stifling as a furnace. No candle flickered in the windows of the large building ...
* (dialectal, possibly obsolete) To shift; to move or remove.
** 1867, Edwin Waugh, Owd Blanket, page 10:Aw could like yo to skift, afore aw […]
** 1875, William Dickinson, Cumbriana; Or, Fragments of Cumbrian Life, page 231:And a man mun keep watch at t mill toft / To stiddy his mouter-dish — help him to sift it, / And see it's o' tidily done; / And gedder up offal, and heàmmward to skift it, / And hev sooins as sure as a gun.
** 1887, Thomas Clarke, Specimens of the Dialect of Westmorland, page 1:[…] teeap wed tak a reet good rin at em, heed brek t' woes wi his heead. Bet he mud rin a gae lang while afooar heed stir a steean i' oor hoose. Ya can haardly skift em [steeans] wi booarin an blastin. It's a varra lang while — a caant tell ya hoo lang — […]
** 1900, Halliwell Sutcliffe, Shameless Wayne, page 103:Ay, he left me drunk t other neet, an' he came back i' a two - three minutes after sober; an' when a man gets skifted out o' liquor so speedy-like, he gets a sort o' hatred on't. Leastways, that's what I've noticed more nor once, an' […]

### References

* ↑ Michael Montgomery, From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (2006, Ulster Historical Foundation, →ISBN), page 141

## Middle English
### Etymology

Old Norse skipta (verb) and Old Norse skipti (noun), from Proto-Germanic *skiftijaną.

### Noun

skift (plural skifts)
* share, portion, lot
    There be many knyghtes that hath envy to us; Therefore whan we shall mete at the day of justis there woll be harde skyffte for us. — Malory
* fate
* effort, attempt, try
    Make ye as good skyffte as ye can, ye shall bere this lady with you on horsebak unto the Pope of Rome. — Malory

### Verb

skift (third-person singular simple present skifteth, present participle skiftende, skiftynge, first-/third-person singular past indicative and past participle skifted)
* to divide, share, distribute, divide up; also, be divided
* to disperse, scatter ~ in sonder,
* to give a fair share ~ even,
    even skifted, evenly matched in number, in equal strength
* to arrange, ordain, cause to occur, rule, manage
    Grete godd wolde so wisely skifte all thynges. — The Prose Life of Alexander
* to protect, save
* to evade, be rid of.
    be skifted of, She was aferde of hym..and she cowde not be skyfte … of hym by no meane. — Malory

#### Conjugation

| infinitive | (to) skift, skifte | (to) skift, skifte |
| | present tense | past tense |
| 1st-person singular | skifte | skifted |
| 2nd-person singular | skiftest | skiftedest |
| 3rd-person singular | skifteth | skifted |
| subjunctive singular | skifte | skifted |
| imperative singular | skifte | — |
| plural$^1$ | skiften, skifte | skifteden, skiftede |
| imperative plural | skifteth, skifte | — |
| participles | skiftynge, skiftende | skifted, yskifted |
$^1$Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

## Norwegian Bokmål
### Etymology 1

From the verb skifte.

#### Noun

skift n (definite singular skiftet, indefinite plural skift, definite plural skifta or skiftene)
* a change (e.g. of clothes)
* a shift (at work, in employment)

##### Derived terms

* girskift
* klesskift
* nattskift
* oljeskift
* skiftarbeid

### Etymology 2
#### Verb

skift
* imperative of skifte

### References

* “skift” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

## Norwegian Nynorsk
### Etymology

From the verb skifte.

### Noun

skift n (definite singular skiftet, indefinite plural skift, definite plural skifta)
* a change (e.g. of clothes)
* a shift (at work, in employment)

#### Derived terms

* girskift
* klesskift
* nattskift
* oljeskift
* skiftarbeid

### Verb

skift
* imperative of skifta

### References

* “skift” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

## Swedish
### Noun

skift n
* a shift ((work) session)
    När börjar ditt skift?When does your shift start?
    Vi sov i skiftWe slept in shifts

#### See also

* skifta
* skifte

### References

* skift in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* skift in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
* skift in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

## West Frisian
### Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

### Noun

skift n (plural skiften, diminutive skiftsje)
* order (taxonomy)

#### Further reading

* “skift”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011