shift - What does it mean?
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Definition of 'shift'Verb
( en-verb)
To change, swap.
* {{quote-magazine|date=2012-03|author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter
|volume=100|issue=2|page=87|magazine=( American Scientist)
|title= The British Longitude Act Reconsidered
|passage=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.}}
To move from one place to another; to redistribute.
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* {{quote-magazine|date=2013-06-22|volume=407|issue=8841|page=68|magazine=(The Economist)
|title= T time
|passage=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.}}
To change position.
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(obsolete) To change (one's clothes); also to change (someone's) underclothes.
*, 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; andnot to have patience to shift me.
To change gears (in a car).
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(typewriters) To move the keys of a typewriter over in order to type capital letters and special characters.
(computer keyboards) To switch to a character entry mode for capital letters and special characters.
(computing) To manipulate a binary number by moving all of its digits left or right; compare rotate.
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(computing) To remove the first value from an array.
To dispose of.
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To hurry.
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(Ireland|vulgar|slang) To engage in sexual petting.
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.
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.
Noun
( en-noun)
(historical) a type of women's undergarment, a slip
- Just last week she bought a new shift at the market.
*
- 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.
* '>citation
* 1919 ,
- Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.
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.
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.
* {{quote-news|year=2012|date=November 7|author=Matt Bai|title=Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds|work=New York Times citation
|passage=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.}}
(US) the gear mechanism in a motor vehicle
- Does it come with a stick-shift ?
- If you press shift -P, the preview display will change.
(computing) a bit shift
(baseball) The infield shift.
- Teams often use the shift against this lefty.
The act of sexual petting.
(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.
(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.
In building, the extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
(mining) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
Derived terms
* blueshift
* day shift
* graveyard shift
* make shift
* night shift
* preshift
* shift break
* shiftwork, shift work
* split shift
* swing shift
* stickshift
* redshift
* (French kissing) get the shift
Similar to 'shift'spit, spat, swept, sept, spout, spot, soft, swift, soffit, soviet, sabot, shaft, sift, sabbat, sippet, spet, skift, speet, shipot, swivet, squbit, shapt, sqft, sipt, skipt, sawpit, sput, shuvit
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