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Shift   /ʃɪft/   Listen
Shift

noun
1.
An event in which something is displaced without rotation.  Synonym: displacement.
2.
A qualitative change.  Synonyms: transformation, transmutation.
3.
The time period during which you are at work.  Synonyms: duty period, work shift.
4.
The act of changing one thing or position for another.  Synonyms: switch, switching.
5.
The act of moving from one place to another.  Synonym: shifting.
6.
(geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other.  Synonyms: break, fault, faulting, fracture, geological fault.  "He studied the faulting of the earth's crust"
7.
A crew of workers who work for a specific period of time.
8.
The key on the typewriter keyboard that shifts from lower-case letters to upper-case letters.  Synonym: shift key.
9.
A woman's sleeveless undergarment.  Synonyms: chemise, shimmy, slip, teddy.
10.
A loose-fitting dress hanging straight from the shoulders without a waist.  Synonyms: chemise, sack.
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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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Shift" Quotes from Famous Books



... on his feet, as a man might shift in presence of a tiger, who, as he feared, was insufficiently chained. He was face to face with a fellow who was as much the terror of the table-land, from the borders of Texas to California, as if he had ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... at each corner," said the boatswain. "Mind and not shift that there board under his ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... certain Mrs. Hammokes was accused of witchcraft, and her husband demanded the "trial by the church Bible." So "she was solemnly conducted to the parish church, where she was stript of all her clothes to her shift, and weighed against the great parish Bible in the presence of all her neighbours. The result was that, to the no small mortification of her accuser, she outweighed the Bible, and was triumphantly acquitted of the charge" (436. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... bank. At a distance beneath him lay the road, bare under the storm clouds. Above and below where he stood it was visible for some rods, and upon it appeared neither man nor beast. He went back to Selim, mounted, and together they made shift to descend the red bank. As, with a noise of breaking twigs and falling earth and stone, they reached the road, a man, hitherto hidden by the giant bole of the oak beneath which he had sat down to rest, rose and came round his tree to see what made the commotion. ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... lighter rather than otherwise, we decided to let everything stand for the present. When Bob called me at midnight, however, the wind had hauled so far round from the eastward that it became necessary to shift the spinnaker to the bowsprit-end; and this ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood


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