shift
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: shĭft
ipa: /ʃɪft/
rhymes: -ɪft
Forms: form: shifts
Etymology: The noun is from Middle English schyft, shyffte. Cognate with German Schicht (“layer, shift”).
The verb is from Middle English schiften, from Old English sċiftan (“to divide, separate into shares; appoint, ordain; arrange, organise”), from Proto-Germanic *skiftijaną, *skiptijaną, from earlier *skipatjaną (“to organise, put in order”), from Proto-Indo-European *skeyb- (“to separate, divide, part”), from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to cut, divide, separate, part”). Cognate with Scots schift, skift (“to shift”), West Frisian skifte, skiftsje (“to sort”), Dutch schiften (“to sort, screen, winnow, part”), German schichten (“to stack, layer”), Swedish skifta (“to shift, change, exchange, vary”), Norwegian skifte (“to shift”), Icelandic skipta (“to switch”). See ship.
Senses: glosses: A movement to do something, a beginning.
examples: text: There was a shift in the political atmosphere.
text: c. 1620-1626, Henry Wotton, letter to Nicholas Pey
My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air.
text: 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.
ref: 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times:
glosses: An act of shifting; a slight movement or change.
glosses: A share, a portion assigned on division.
examples: text: Just last week she bought a new shift at the market.
text: 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.
ref: 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter X, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book V:
text: 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 […]
ref: 1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools, volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, →OCLC, page 202:
text: Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.
ref: 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 47”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:
glosses: A type of women's undergarment of dress length worn under dresses or skirts, a slip or chemise.
glosses: A simple straight-hanging, loose-fitting dress.
examples: text: We'll work three shifts a day till the job's done.
synonyms: workshift
glosses: A change of workers, now specifically a set group of workers or period of working time.
examples: text: Does it come with a stick-shift?
glosses: The gear mechanism in a motor vehicle.
examples: text: If you press shift-P, the preview display will change.
glosses: Alternative spelling of Shift (“a modifier button of computer keyboards”).
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A control code or character used to change between different character sets.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A control code or character used to change between different character sets.
An instance of the use of such a code or character.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A bit shift.
examples: text: Teams often use a shift against this lefty.
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: An infield shift.
examples: text: She flicked her hair out of her eyes again and looked into yours as you put your hands on her waist. Then her tongue was in your mouth and yours was in hers. You were getting the shift. Ye were shifting.
ref: 2023, Colin Walsh, Kala:
text: [If] I went on dates with these two [alcohols], right, you're a deep meaningful conversation with this one, … but this one? A shift and a finger and maybe you'd go home, do you know what I mean?
ref: 2024 December 16, Dermot Ward, in "Irish People Try Cheap Vs Expensive Alcohol 3&t=16m" (c. 16 minutes in), The TRY Channel
qualifier: crude slang
glosses: The act of kissing passionately.
raw_tags: with the definite article
examples: text: 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.
ref: c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
glosses: A contrivance, a device to try when other methods fail.
examples: text: 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
ref: c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
text: Reduced to pitiable shifts.
ref: 1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC:
text: I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.
ref: c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
text: Little souls on little shifts rely.
ref: 1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:
glosses: A trick, an artifice.
topics: business
construction
manufacturing
glosses: The extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
topics: business
mining
glosses: A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
examples: text: This kind of change, called shift - or more memorably, 'viral sex' - tends to trigger a pandemic, because a radically different virus demands a radically different immune response, and that takes time to mobilise.
ref: 2017, Laura Spinney, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, →ISBN:
topics: biology
genetics
medicine
natural-sciences
sciences
glosses: A mutation in which the DNA or RNA from two different sources (such as viruses or bacteria) combine.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: In violin-playing, any position of the left hand except that nearest the nut.
glosses: A period of time in which one's consciousness resides in another reality, usually achieved through meditation or other means.
glosses: be done; ruined
Hyponyms: antigenic shift
blueshift
day shift
graveyard shift
locking shift
make shift
night shift
redshift
split shift
swing shift
wind shift
Derived terms: allylic shift
Bezold-Brücke shift
blueshift
blue shift
chain shift
chemical shift
continental shift
dative shift
Doppler shift
field shift
first shift
frequency-shift keying
frequency shift keying
gear shift
hoot owl shift
hot shift
isotope shift
Lamb shift
language shift
left shift
lift and shift
lobster shift
make-shift
mass shift
modal shift
money shift
ovulatory shift hypothesis
paradigm shift
phase-shift keying
phase shift keying
Purkinje shift
put a shift in
redshift
red shift
right shift
second shift
seismic shift
semantic shift
shift break
shift dress
shift in
Shift In
Shift JIS
shift key
shift lead
shift lever
shift lock
shift out
Shift Out
shift register
shift stick
shiftwork
shift work
sound shift
stickshift
stick shift
tax shift
third shift
tilt-shift
twilight shift
vibe shift
work shift
you're only as good as your last shift