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shift

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[ UK /ʃˈɪft/ ]
[ US /ˈʃɪft/ ]
VERB
  1. make a shift in or exchange of
    First Joe led; then we switched
  2. move around
    transfer the packet from his trouser pockets to a pocket in his jacket
  3. use a shift key on a keyboard
    She could not shift so all her letters are written in lower case
  4. change gears
    you have to shift when you go down a steep hill
  5. move very slightly
    He shifted in his seat
  6. move sideways or in an unsteady way
    The ship careened out of control
  7. move from one setting or context to another
    shift the emphasis
    shift one's attention
  8. lay aside, abandon, or leave for another
    switch to a different brand of beer
    She switched psychiatrists
    The car changed lanes
  9. change place or direction
    Shift one's position
  10. move abruptly
    The ship suddenly lurched to the left
  11. change phonetically as part of a systematic historical change
    Grimm showed how the consonants shifted
  12. change in quality
    His tone shifted
  13. move and exchange for another
    shift the date for our class reunion
NOUN
  1. a loose-fitting dress hanging straight from the shoulders without a waist
  2. a crew of workers who work for a specific period of time
  3. a woman's sleeveless undergarment
  4. an event in which something is displaced without rotation
  5. the key on the typewriter keyboard that shifts from lower-case letters to upper-case letters
  6. the act of changing one thing or position for another
    his switch on abortion cost him the election
  7. the act of moving from one place to another
    his constant shifting disrupted the class
  8. the time period during which you are at work
  9. (geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other
    they built it right over a geological fault
    he studied the faulting of the earth's crust
  10. a qualitative change
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How To Use shift In A Sentence

  • Some of the crew went off-shift, stringing up hybrid bunks and hammocks belowdecks, the others continued working.
  • The abrupt facies shift, bioturbation and cemented nature of the surfaces suggests that they represent marine flooding surfaces, formed during a rapid rise in relative sea level and/or a reduction in sediment supply.
  • Now comes the news that her shifty lawyer father has only 48 hours to raise a lot of money or face financial ruin and imprisonment.
  • His self-image is rooted in robotic toughness, like the shape-shifting, molten-metal fiend in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
  • Another friend notes a shift in the type of gifts given at wedding showers, a reversion to 1950s-style offerings: soup ladles and frilly aprons are being unwrapped along with see-through nighties and push-up bras.
  • Thirty unarmed INS agents accompanied the flight, guarding the handcuffed deportees in shifts, standing in aircraft's aisles at every fifth row.
  • With a full tank of fuel, the weight bias shifts rearwards slightly, which helps traction, as does the standard limited slip differential.
  • Regin downshifted, tires squealing as she swerved to dodge a roadkill-bound possum. Dreams of a Dark Warrior
  • It is also shifting plenty of feminine, lacy lingerie, in the kind of bright colours that go well with a sun tan.
  • The goal of shifting freight from road to rail has been quietly abandoned.
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