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Shifting   /ʃˈɪftɪŋ/   Listen
verb
Shift  v. t.  (past & past part. shifted; pres. part. shifting)  
1.
To divide; to distribute; to apportion. (Obs.) "To which God of his bounty would shift Crowns two of flowers well smelling."
2.
To change the place of; to move or remove from one place to another; as, to shift a burden from one shoulder to another; to shift the blame. "Hastily he schifte him(self)." "Pare saffron between the two St. Mary's days, Or set or go shift it that knowest the ways."
3.
To change the position of; to alter the bearings of; to turn; as, to shift the helm or sails. "Carrying the oar loose, (they) shift it hither and thither at pleasure."
4.
To exchange for another of the same class; to remove and to put some similar thing in its place; to change; as, to shift the clothes; to shift the scenes. "I would advise you to shift a shirt."
5.
To change the clothing of; used reflexively. (Obs.) "As it were to ride day and night; and... not to have patience to shift me."
6.
To put off or out of the way by some expedient. "I shifted him away."
To shift off, to delay; to defer; to put off; to lay aside.
To shift the scene, to change the locality or the surroundings, as in a play or a story. "Shift the scene for half an hour; Time and place are in thy power."


Shift  v. i.  
1.
To divide; to distribute. (Obs.) "Some this, some that, as that him liketh shift."
2.
To make a change or changes; to change position; to move; to veer; to substitute one thing for another; used in the various senses of the transitive verb. "The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon." "Here the Baillie shifted and fidgeted about in his seat."
3.
To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to contrive; to manage. "Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave their companions to shift as well as they can."
4.
To practice indirect or evasive methods. "All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions."
5.
(Naut.) To slip to one side of a ship, so as to destroy the equilibrum; said of ballast or cargo; as, the cargo shifted.


adjective
Shifting  adj.  
1.
Changing in place, position, or direction; varying; variable; fickle; as, shifting winds; shifting opinions or principles.
2.
Adapted or used for shifting anything.
Shifting backstays (Naut.), temporary stays that have to be let go whenever the vessel tacks or jibes.
Shifting ballast, ballast which may be moved from one side of a vessel to another as safety requires.
Shifting center. See Metacenter.
Shifting locomotive. See Switching engine, under Switch.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Shifting" Quotes from Famous Books



... black flag and returned it, shooting away from her with all the sail he could pack; and had he taken Armstrong's advice to have gone before the wind, he had probably escaped; but keeping his tacks down, either by the wind's shifting, or ill steerage, or both, he was taken aback with his sails, and the Swallow came a second time very nigh to him. He had now, perhaps, finished the fight very desperately, if death, who took a swift passage in a grape shot, had not interposed, and struck him directly on the throat. ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Inlet is buoyed in such a way that the stranger who tries to go through it will run his vessel so hard and fast aground that she will be likely to stay there until the waves make an end of her, or the shifting sands of the bar bury her out ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... soul;' 'a spirit is a spirit;' 'a fetiche is a fetiche,' &c. These all being equivalent to this proposition, viz. WHAT IS, IS; i.e. what hath existence, hath existence; or, who hath a soul, hath a soul. What is this more than trifling with words? It is but like a monkey shifting his oyster from one hand to the other: and had he but words, might no doubt have said, 'Oyster in right hand is subject, and oyster in left hand is predicate:' and so might have made a self-evident proposition of ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... evening of Thanksgiving Day there was an air of repressed excitement about the Cardew house. Mademoiselle, in a new silk dress, ran about the lower floor, followed by an agitated Grayson with a cloth, for Mademoiselle was shifting ceaselessly and with trembling hands vases of flowers, and spilling water at each shift. At six o'clock had arrived a large square white box, which the footman had carried to the rear and there exhibited, allowing a palpitating cook, scullery maid and divers ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... before a house on the Swedish bank to hay his horses. We went up and found a single inhabitant, a man who was splitting fir for torches, but the conversation was limited to alternate puffs from our pipes. There was a fine aurora behind us—a low arch of white fire, with streamers radiating outward, shifting and dancing ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor


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