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   shift

   /ʃɪft/

   verb

   • 1. move or cause to move from one place to another, especially over a small distance: "a team from the power company came to shift the cables away from the house" Similar movecarrytransfertransportconveytakebringbearlugcarthaulfetchswitchmove aroundtransposerelocaterepositionrearrangedisplacemoveslideslipmove aroundbe displaced
   • ▪ change the position of one's body, especially because one is nervous or uncomfortable: "he shifted a little in his chair" Similar changealteradjustmake adjustments toadaptamendrecastvarymodifyrevisereverseretractdo a U-turn onrow backeat one's wordsdo an about-turn onOpposite keepstick to
   • ▪ change the emphasis, direction, or focus of: "she's shifting the blame on to me"
   • ▪ change in emphasis, direction, or focus: "the wind had shifted to the east" Similar veeralterchangebackvaryfluctuateturnswingchange direction
   • ▪ move quickly: informal British "you'll have time for a bite if you shift"
   • ▪ move from a place or rouse oneself from a state of inactivity: informal British "shift yourself, Ruby, do something useful and get the plates"
   • ▪ move (data) to the right or left in a register: "the partial remainder is shifted left"
   • ▪ remove (a stain): informal British "thorough cleaning is necessary to shift all cooking residues" Similar get rid oftake outget offremovebudgeliftexpunge
   • ▪ sell (something): informal "a lot of high-priced product you simply don't know how to shift"
   • ▪ eat or drink (something) hastily or in large amounts. informal British
   • 2. change gear in a vehicle: North American "she shifted down to fourth"
   • 3. be evasive or indirect: archaic "they know not how to shift and rob as the old ones do"
   • 4. kiss and engage in sexually stimulating activity with (someone): informal Irish "she had kissed or shifted him three months earlier at a house party"

   noun

   • 1. a slight change in position, direction, or tendency: "a shift in public opinion" Similar movementmoveshiftingtransferencetransportconveyanceswitchtranspositionrelocationrepositioningrearrangementchangealterationadjustmentadaptationamendmentrecastingvariationmodificationrevisionreversalretractionsea changeU-turnrowbackabout-turn
   • ▪ the displacement of spectral lines.
   • ▪ a key on a typewriter or computer keyboard used to switch between two sets of characters or functions, principally between lower- and upper-case letters.
   • ▪ short for sound shift
   • ▪ the gear lever or gear-changing mechanism in a vehicle. North American
   • ▪ the positioning of successive rows of bricks so that their ends do not coincide.
   • ▪ a movement of the digits of a word in a register one or more places to left or right, equivalent to multiplying or dividing the corresponding number by a power of whatever number is the base.
   • ▪ a change of position by two or more players before the ball is put into play.
   • 2. each of two or more recurring periods in which different groups of workers do the same jobs in relay: "Anne was on the night shift" Similar work periodstintspell of workstretch
   • ▪ the group of people who work during a particular shift: "the bus was still waiting there when the day shift went home" Similar groupcrewgangteamsquadpatrol
   • 3. a woman's straight unwaisted dress.
   • ▪ a long, loose-fitting undergarment. historical
   • 4. an ingenious or devious device or stratagem: archaic "the thousand shifts and devices of which Hannibal was a master" Similar stratagemschemesubterfugeexpedientdodgetrickrusewileartificedeceptionstrategydeviceplan
   • 5. a period of kissing and engaging in sexually stimulating activity with someone: informal Irish "from getting the shift to getting hitched, there is an app for everything these days"

   Word Origin Old Englishsciftan ‘arrange, divide, apportion’, of Germanic origin; related to German schichten ‘to layer, stratify’. A common Middle English sense ‘change, replace’ gave rise to shift (sense 3 of the noun) (via the notion of changing one's clothes) and shift (sense 2 of the noun) (via the concept of relays of workers).

   Derivatives

   • 1. shiftable adjective

   Scrabble Points: 11

   • S

     1

   • H

     4

   • I

     1

   • F

     4

   • T

     1

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