shift
Meanings
- A movement to do something, a beginning.
- An act of shifting; a slight movement or change.
- A share, a portion assigned on division.
- A type of women's undergarment of dress length worn under dresses or skirts, a slip or chemise.
- A simple straight-hanging, loose-fitting dress.
- A change of workers, now specifically a set group of workers or period of working time.
- The gear mechanism in a motor vehicle.
- Alternative spelling of Shift (“a modifier button of computer keyboards”).
- A control code or character used to change between different character sets.
- An instance of the use of such a code or character.
- A bit shift.
- An infield shift.
- To move from one place to another; to redistribute.
- To change in form or character; switch.
- To change position; to move.
- To change residence; to leave and live elsewhere.
- To change (clothes, especially underwear); to change the clothes of.
- To change (someone's) clothes; sometimes specifically, to change underwear.
- To change gears (in an automobile).
- To move the keys of a typewriter over in order to type capital letters or special characters.
- To switch to a character entry mode for capital letters or special characters.
- To manipulate a binary number by moving all of its digits left or right; compare rotate.
- To remove (the first value from an array).
- To dispose of, remove.
- A modifier key whose main function is shifting between two or more functions of any of certain other keys (usually by pressing Shift and the other button simultaneously).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
The noun is from Middle English schyft, shyffte. Cognate with German Schicht (“layer, shift”). The verb is from Middle English schiften, from Old English sċiftan (“to divide, separate into shares; appoint, ordain; arrange, organise”), from Proto-Germanic *skiftijaną, *skiptijaną, from earlier *skipatjaną (“to organise, put in order”), from Proto-Indo-European *skeyb- (“to separate, divide, part”), from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to cut, divide, separate, part”). Cognate with Scots schift, skift (“to shift”), West Frisian skifte, skiftsje (“to sort”), Dutch schiften (“to sort, screen, winnow, part”), German schichten (“to stack, layer”), Swedish skifta (“to shift, change, exchange, vary”), Norwegian skifte (“to shift”), Icelandic skipta (“to switch”). See ship.