SHIFTER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Shifter

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/ʃˈɪftər/ Listen

noun

Shifter n.

One who, or that which, shifts; one who plays tricks or practices artifice; a cozener. "'T was such a shifter that, if truth were known, Death was half glad when he had got him down."

(Naut.) An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, steeping, and shifting the salt provisions.

(Mach.)

(a)

An arrangement for shifting a belt sidewise from one pulley to another.

(b)

(Knitting Mach.) A wire for changing a loop from one needle to another, as in narrowing, etc.

(construction, tunneling) A foreman responsible for the work on one shift in one area, as in one heading (4).

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Etymology of 'Shifter'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Shifter" Quotes from Famous Books

... Dick Shifter was born in Cheapside, and, having passed reputably through all the classes of St. Paul's school, has been for some years a student in the Temple. He is of opinion, that intense application dulls the faculties, and thinks it necessary to temper the severity of the law by ...

— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... himself for eighteen months by making tallow candles on Staten Island. At the same time French exiles were seeking to gain a living in New York,—Ledru Rollin as a store porter, Louis Blanc as a dancing-master, and Felix Pyat as a scene-shifter. Not succeeding very well in making candles, Garibaldi went again to South America, and became captain of a trading-vessel plying between China and Peru, and then again of a vessel between New York and England. In 1854 he was once ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... tribute. You imagined, of course, that I was a scene-shifter. And now that you know all about me, what of Gavrillac? ...

— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... just been invalided home, I didn't think it necessary to establish an alibi. But I hastened to express my sympathy for his predicament. Fate had been kind to Dick Searles. In college he had written a play or two that demonstrated his talent, and after a rigid apprenticeship as scene-shifter and assistant producer he had made a killing with "Let George Do It," a farce that earned enough to put him at ease and make possible an upward step into straight comedy. Even as we talked a capacity house was laughing at his skit, "Who Killed Cock Robin?" just around the corner ...

— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson

... than the world, that which comes to a young man who has seen for an instant a particular expression on a particular face. He was supposed to be the clown, but he was really almost everything else, the author (so far as there was an author), the prompter, the scene-painter, the scene-shifter, and, above all, the orchestra. At abrupt intervals in the outrageous performance he would hurl himself in full costume at the piano and bang out some popular ...

— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton