Definitions for shift

• Definition
• Anagrams (51)

shift shift

Spelling: [shift]

IPA: /ʃɪft/

Shift is a 5 letter English word. It's valid Scrabble word worth 11 points. It's valid Words with friends word worth 10 points.

You can make 51 anagrams from letters in shift (fhist).

Definitions for shift

noun

1. a change or transfer from one place, position, direction, person, etc., to another:
2. a person's scheduled period of work, especially the portion of the day scheduled as a day's work when a shop, service, office, or industry operates continuously during both the day and night:
3. a group of workers scheduled to work during such a period:
4. Baseball. a notable repositioning by several fielders to the left or the right of their normal playing position, an occasional strategy against batters who usually hit the ball to the same side of the field.
5. Automotive. a gearshift.
6. Clothing. a straight, loose-fitting dress worn with or without a belt. a woman's chemise or slip.
7. Football. a lateral or backward movement from one position to another, usually by two or more offensive players just before the ball is put into play.
8. Mining. a dislocation of a seam or stratum; fault.
9. Music. a change in the position of the left hand on the fingerboard in playing a stringed instrument.
10. Linguistics. a change or system of parallel changes that affects the sound structure of a language, as the series of related changes in the English vowel system from Middle English to Modern English. a change in the meaning or use of a word. Compare functional shift.
11. an expedient; ingenious device.
12. an evasion, artifice, or trick.
13. change or substitution.
14. Bridge. shift bid.
15. Agriculture. any of successive crops. the tract of land used.
16. an act or instance of using the shift key, as on a typewriter keyboard.

Idioms

1. shift gears. gear (def 19).

verb (used with object)

1. to put (something) aside and replace it by another or others; change or exchange:
2. to transfer from one place, position, person, etc., to another:
3. Automotive. to change (gears) from one ratio or arrangement to another.
4. Linguistics. to change in a systematic way, especially phonetically.

verb (used without object)

1. to move from one place, position, direction, etc., to another.
2. to manage to get along or succeed by oneself.
3. to get along by indirect methods; use any expediency, trick, or evasion to get along or succeed:
4. to change gears in driving an automobile.
5. Linguistics. to undergo a systematic, especially phonetic, change.
6. to press a shift key, as on a typewriter keyboard.
7. Archaic. to change one's clothes.

Origin of shift

before 1000; (v.) Middle English shiften to arrange, Old English sciftan; cognate with German schichten to arrange in order, Old Norse skipta to divide; (noun) Middle English: contrivance, st

Examples for shift

Next door to where I board there's a dog that goes on shift as regular as a policeman.

He didn't want to be there exposed, unable to shift the focus when he felt like it.

The ships did not get clear without some trouble, and we thought it wisest to shift our berth.

There is no doubt that some unfortunate reporter, tasked with working the weekend shift, would have looked into them.

The shift in language and content is click-bait for the enterprising eBay-er.

These were denied us, and we were told to shift for ourselves.

Most other social justice movements are seeking some shift of power and money.

I sung out, "there's breakers, and everybody must shift for himself."

And Asians also showed a shift toward the GOP in the mid-terms.

On my return to Philadelphia, I resolved to shift my ground, and try a new tack.