shift – English noun declension

English noun forms of shift

Noun: shift
Singularshift
Pluralshifts

Sample Sentences

  • There was a shift in the political atmosphere.
  • c. 1620-1626, Henry Wotton, letter to Nicholas Pey
  • My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air.
  • 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. [2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 03 Jun 2020:]
  • 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. [1749, Henry Fielding, chapter X, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book V:]
  • At length, one night, when the company by some accident broke up much sooner than ordinary, so that the candles were not half burnt out, she was not able to resist the temptation, but resolved to have them some way or other. Accordingly, as soon as the hurry was over, and the servants, as she thought, all gone to sleep, she stole out of her bed, and went down stairs, naked to her shift as she was, with a design to steal them […] [1762, Charles Johnstone, The Reverie; or, A Flight to the Paradise of Fools, volume 2, Dublin: Printed by Dillon Chamberlaine, →OCLC, page 202:]
  • Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks. [1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 47”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:]
  • We'll work three shifts a day till the job's done.
  • Work commenced at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday and continued without break until 4 a.m. on Monday morning, in the course of which three shifts of upwards of 90 men each and three steam cranes were employed. [1958 June 26, “New Track Layout and Marshalling Yard at Barking”, in Railway Magazine, page 428:]
  • Does it come with a stick-shift?
  • If you press shift-P, the preview display will change.
  • Teams often use a shift against this lefty.
  • She flicked her hair out of her eyes again and looked into yours as you put your hands on her waist. Then her tongue was in your mouth and yours was in hers. You were getting the shift. Ye were shifting. [2023, Colin Walsh, Kala:]
  • [If] I went on dates with these two [alcohols], right, you're a deep meaningful conversation with this one, … but this one? A shift and a finger and maybe you'd go home, do you know what I mean? [2024 December 16, Dermot Ward, in "Irish People Try Cheap Vs Expensive Alcohol 3&t=16m" (c. 16 minutes in), The TRY Channel]
  • 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. [c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):]
  • 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 [c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):]
  • Reduced to pitiable shifts. [1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC:]
  • I'll find a thousand shifts to get away. [c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:]
  • Little souls on little shifts rely. [1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:]
  • This kind of change, called shift - or more memorably, 'viral sex' - tends to trigger a pandemic, because a radically different virus demands a radically different immune response, and that takes time to mobilise. [2017, Laura Spinney, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, →ISBN:]

Etymology

1. The noun is from Middle English schyft, shyffte. Cognate with German Schicht (“layer, shift”).
2. 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. See: Middle English Nouns 'schyft', German Nouns 'Schicht', Old English Nouns 'sċiftan', Icelandic Nouns 'skipta'.

Verbs referencing "shift"

Dutch Nouns shift, French Nouns shift, German Nouns Schicht, Irish Nouns seift.