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Shift   /ʃɪft/   Listen
Shift

verb
(past & past part. shifted; pres. part. shifting)
1.
Make a shift in or exchange of.  Synonyms: change over, switch.
2.
Change place or direction.  Synonyms: dislodge, reposition.
3.
Move around.  Synonym: transfer.
4.
Move very slightly.  Synonyms: agitate, budge, stir.
5.
Move from one setting or context to another.  "Shift one's attention"
6.
Change in quality.
7.
Move and exchange for another.
8.
Move sideways or in an unsteady way.  Synonyms: careen, tilt, wobble.
9.
Move abruptly.  Synonyms: lurch, pitch.
10.
Use a shift key on a keyboard.
11.
Change phonetically as part of a systematic historical change.
12.
Change gears.
13.
Lay aside, abandon, or leave for another.  Synonyms: change, switch.  "She switched psychiatrists" , "The car changed lanes"



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"Shift" Quotes from Famous Books



... on his feet, as a man might shift in presence of a tiger, who, as he feared, was insufficiently chained. He was face to face with a fellow who was as much the terror of the table-land, from the borders of Texas to California, as if he had ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... at each corner," said the boatswain. "Mind and not shift that there board under his ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... certain Mrs. Hammokes was accused of witchcraft, and her husband demanded the "trial by the church Bible." So "she was solemnly conducted to the parish church, where she was stript of all her clothes to her shift, and weighed against the great parish Bible in the presence of all her neighbours. The result was that, to the no small mortification of her accuser, she outweighed the Bible, and was triumphantly acquitted of the charge" (436. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... bank. At a distance beneath him lay the road, bare under the storm clouds. Above and below where he stood it was visible for some rods, and upon it appeared neither man nor beast. He went back to Selim, mounted, and together they made shift to descend the red bank. As, with a noise of breaking twigs and falling earth and stone, they reached the road, a man, hitherto hidden by the giant bole of the oak beneath which he had sat down to rest, rose and came round his tree to see what made the commotion. ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... lighter rather than otherwise, we decided to let everything stand for the present. When Bob called me at midnight, however, the wind had hauled so far round from the eastward that it became necessary to shift the spinnaker to the bowsprit-end; and this ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... shift his attitude, fingers curved to clutch, arms extended, until he heard the tattoo of their horses' hoofs on ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... I was to go in. And as soon as that little matter of the crew was settled all hands set to work to shift the cargo from the ship aboard the pirates. Wonderful quick they did it too; and when I thought how long that cargo had taken to get on board, it was wonderful how soon they whipped it out of her. When they had stripped her of all they thought worth taking, they ran one of the ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... in the world, as in the school, I'd say how fate may change and shift,— The prize be sometimes with the fool, The race not always to the swift: The strong may yield, the good may fall, The great man be a vulgar clown, The knave be lifted over all, ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... from the immediate reach of the flames by the branch of the river upon the shore of which we were encamped, the heat had become so intense, that we were obliged to shift farther to the west. Except in the supply of arms and ammunition, we perceived that our booty was worth nothing. This Texan expedition must have been composed of a very beggarly set, for there was not a single yard of linen, nor a miserable worn-out pair of trousers, to be ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... farther end rested upon the opposite cheek of the crevasse, lapping the hard ice by several feet. Then the cables were held taut, and securely fastened to the belaying-pin. The nearer end of the pole was tied with other ropes—so that it could not possibly shift from its place—and the yawning abyss was now spanned ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... because the side of the house next them had no lighted windows. They traveled in a wide, half circle, and thought that they were leaving a straight trail behind them. More than once Rowdy was urged by his aching arm to drop the lead-rope and leave Chub to shift by himself, but habit was strong and his heart was soft. Then he felt an odd twitching at the lead-rope, as if Chub were minded to rebel against their leadership. Rowdy yanked him into remembrance of his duty, and wondered. Bill ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower

... North-West. At 6 a.m., being near the Entrance of the Harbour which lies on the East side of Otaha before mentioned,* (* Hamene Bay.) and finding that it might be examin'd without loosing time, I sent away the Master in the Long boat, with orders to sound the Harbour, and if the wind did not shift in our favour to land upon the Island and to Traffick with the Natives for such refreshments as were to be got. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... "Good for you, my girl!" said he. "You did right in not letting your father shoulder the blame. I suppose you know that when Our Lord was so angry at Adam and Eve it wasn't because they had stolen an apple, but because they were cowards and tried to shift the blame, the one onto the other. You may go now, and you can keep your apples because you were not afraid to tell ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... equipment, but it is the highest: The Canadian, if he is to live a life thoroughly scaled on the scale of the reasonable, must place the greatest importance on those interests which transcend all his others, his future fare beyond this make-shift existence; his relations to the unseen world; and how to lay hold on purity and righteousness. Think what he may of them, life should at any rate think. Let him set apart times to ponder over these matters: and for this, I say that to be a lofty and noble nation, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... after finishing her own toilette locked her door, sat down and cried heartily. She thought Mrs. Evelyn had been, perhaps unconsciously, very unkind; and to say that unkindness has not been meant is but to shift the charge from one to another vital point in the character of a friend, and one perhaps sometimes not less grave. A moment's passionate wrong may consist with the endurance of a friendship worth having, better than the thoughtlessness of obtuse wits that can never ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... of the slits, he peered out. The last of the giant gates was being installed. Their own crew would have only one more shift before ...
— Daughters of Doom • Herbert B. Livingston

... become the basis of subsequent discussion, it is then usually discovered for the first time that the real purpose for which they were drawn is contained in what seemed to be casual and incidental words. If the current in Dresden should shift in the Prussian direction, the valuable personal assistance which Herr von Nostitz is able to render by means of his sense, his experience, and the credit both have won him, would be thrown on the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... there occurred an enforced shift of actors, owing to Mr. Mooney's being somewhat indisposed; and Winston, aided by considerable prompting from the others, succeeded in getting through his lines, conscious of much good-natured guying ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... forgetting my wounds, I tumbled from the horse, threw myself flat and drank and drank, more, I think, than ever I did before. Not in all my life have I tasted anything so delicious as was that long draught of water. When I had satisfied my thirst, I dipped my head and made shift to jerk my wounded arm into it, for its coolness seemed to still the pain. Presently Leo rose, the water running from his face and beard, and said—"What shall we do now? The river seems to be wide, over a hundred yards, and it is low, but there may be deep water in the middle. Shall we try ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... trail and chewed the long blades of grass, or fanned the air with their hats. They had no knowledge of the situation such as their leaders possessed, and their only emotion was one of satisfaction at the chance the halt gave them to rest and to shift their packs. Wood again walked down the trail with Capron and disappeared, and one of the officers informed us that the scouts had seen the outposts of the enemy. It did not seem reasonable that the Spaniards, who had failed to attack us when we landed at Baiquiri, would oppose us until ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... seal-mother giving a curious display of maternal solicitude in teaching her calf to swim. First taking hold of it by the flipper, and for a while supporting it above water, with a shove she sends the youngster adrift, leaving it to shift for itself. In a short time the little creature becomes exhausted; she takes a fresh grip on its flipper, and again supports it till it has recovered breath, after which there is another push off, followed by a new attempt to swim, the same process being several times repeated to ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... a grim smile). Here it comes, the trouble you spoke of, Mr. Slocum, and we'll make short shift of it. It's better to crush such things at the start ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... der Donk replied, and said all that he had said before, prating on till the boys began to yawn and to shift their feet from one side to the other, for they had been standing all this time, and ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh

... performance for several minutes, the rapid movement of the horses causing him to shift his position once or twice from one side of the house to the other. Finally, one of the Sioux saw how idle their pursuit was, and, angered at being baffled, deliberately raised his rifle and ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis

... asunder. From that he passed on to the scientific fact that the ultimate molecules of matter are not only in constant whirring motion, but that also they do not actually touch one another. The atoms composing the point of a pin, for instance, shift and change without ceasing, ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... spongy external cuticle, swelling into excrescences, is only used for floats of the fishermen's nets in the island. Beneath lies a coating of more compact, but cellular, tissue, of a beautiful rich colour—a sort of red umber. This layer, called la camicia (the shift), covers the good or “female” bark, with which every one is acquainted ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... obstinacy. "The thing that are about to do us is unjust. I would load a gun myself against them, and if money be what is wanted I would give Adone my pearls. He asks me for nothing, but when he does I will strip myself to my shift ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... playing at the head of their regiments, not a straggler, but every man in his place, stepping jauntily as on parade, though it had marched twenty miles and more, in open column with arms at "right shoulder shift," and rays of the declining sun flaming on polished bayonets, the brigade moved down the broad, smooth pike, and wheeled on to its camping ground. Jackson's men, by thousands, had gathered on either side of the road ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... back thy banner, wench, from as rude and red a fray, As e'er was proof of soldier's thew or theme for minstrel's lay! Here, Hubert, bring the silver bowl, and liquor quantum suff., I'll make a shift to drain it yet, ere I part with boots and buff;— Though Guy through many a gaping wound is breathing forth his life, And I come to thee a landless man, my ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... or even Paris. In England, on the Harrasford tour or the Bill and Boom, they had nice dressing-rooms, with a carpet, water hot and cold, quick attendance, stairs swept every day. Here, old plaster and those idiots who looked as if they understood nothing—it took three of them to shift a scene—Dagoes who asked her straight out, in ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... the rebellion was pitifully ended, a few hinds came to her, and she made a shift. And it was better still after Privy Seal fell, for then came Throckmorton the spy into his lands, and he brought with him carpenters and masons and joiners to make his house fair, and some of these men he lent to Mary Hall. But it had been prophesied by a ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... has been a constant factor in American development since early times, continued unabated after the Civil War; indeed the restless spirit aroused by the four years of conflict undoubtedly tended to increase this steady shift toward the West. By 1890 approximately a fifth of the native Americans were to be found in states other than those in which they had been born. 95,000 natives of Maine, for example, were to be found in Massachusetts; 17,000 were in California; and ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... that contained the farm products, horses and machinery. Both stacks were afire in several places, but as there was only a slight wind the flames went almost straight up, inclining away from the buildings. But it would need only a slight shift of the wind to ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... strength to vanquish their opponent. Thus it went on until they had had several rounds in this fierce way. How it would have ended we know not. As they fought they moved along the coast, and in order to see them to advantage the boys had to shift their position. One of them unfortunately rose up so high that, the sun being behind him in the heavens, his shadow was cast on the waters over the two fierce combatants. As quick as a flash they let go their grip on each other and dashed off in ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... assailants, as a last shift, tried to get the garrison to surrender, assuring them that the Indians were hourly expecting reinforcements, including the artillery brought against Ruddle's and Martin's stations two years previously; and that if forced to batter down the walls no quarter would ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... which are grouped the pipes. The barrel revolves slowly from back to front, each revolution as a rule playing one complete tune. A notch-pin in the barrelhead, furnished with as many notches as there are tunes, enables the performer to shift the barrel and change the tune. The ordinary street barrel-organ had a compass varying from 24 to 34 notes, forming a diatonic scale with a few accidentals, generally F, G, C. There were usually two stops, one ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... Navigation, I think it is the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded parlour, with a bar at one end, looking on the street; and another sanded parlour, darker and colder, with an empty bird-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the company of three uncommunicative engineer apprentices and a silent bagman. The food, as usual in Belgium, was of a nondescript occasional character; indeed I have never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal among ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... who perfectly understood that judgment had gone against him, "and much goot may't do you! but mysel would sooner trink the dirty bog water of Sleevrechkin. Oich, oich! the dirts! But I say, lanlort, maype you'll have got some prandies in the house? I can make shift wi' that when there's no ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... yet cannot do so directly, or he would be too crudely meddling again in the Ring affair: he cannot press on him his counsel, but, at his old trick of ingenuous double-dealing, might by means of this guessing-game make shift ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... to the public. Did I never get caught? That made it all the more lively and interesting. Denials, affidavits, elaborate explanations, two sides to any question; if it was too hot, I could change the name and shift the scene to a still more obscure town. Or it could be laid to the zeal of a local reporter, who could give the most ingenious reasons for his story. Once I worked one of those imaginary reporters up into such prominence for his clever astuteness that my boss was taken in, and asked me to send ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... of the Weather, from Heat to Cold, People are apt to take Cold, often neglecting to shift their Cloaths with the Weather; which with Abundance of Damps and Mists from the Water, and by eating too plentifully of some delicious Fruits, makes the People subject to Feavers and Agues, which is the Country Distemper, ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... stage of speculative melancholy. No brute can have this sort of melancholy; no man who is irreligious can become its prey. It is the sick shudder of the frustrated religious demand, and not the mere necessary outcome of animal experience. Teufelsdroeckh himself could have made shift to face the general chaos and bedevilment of this world's experiences very well, were he not the victim of an originally unlimited trust and affection towards them. If he might meet them piecemeal, with no suspicion {43} of any whole expressing itself in them, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... she, in response, had shot him down? In the darkness of conjecture there seemed no other adequate explanation. The two were intimate; the rumor of an engagement was already circulating about the garrison. And the stricken man had endeavored to shift the blame on him. Hamlin could not believe this was done through any desire to injure; the Lieutenant had no cause for personal dislike which would account for such an accusation. They had only met once, and then briefly. There was no rivalry between them, no animosity. To be sure, Gaskins had been ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... ago Isabella had a terrible fit of the toothake, and she walked with a long night-shift at dead of night like a ghost, and I thought she was one. She prayed for nature's sweet restorer—balmy sleep—but did not get it—a ghostly figure indeed she was, enough to make a saint tremble. It made me quiver ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... life now. After all, the life beyond offered very little to Mrs. Morel. She saw that our chance for DOING is here, and doing counted with her. Paul was going to prove that she had been right; he was going to make a man whom nothing should shift off his feet; he was going to alter the face of the earth in some way which mattered. Wherever he went she felt her soul went with him. Whatever he did she felt her soul stood by him, ready, as it were, to hand him his tools. She could ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... time later when the business of the day came to a satisfactory close. Winfield & Camby's representative had departed with his signed contract which McCoy had designated as a "gilt-edge proposition." The fish were all unloaded and the night-shift had already started to work on them. The events of the past two days were ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... innocent as a child of all worldly affairs unconnected with the sea. He once told me, "I can make a shift to get along with an easy book; but if I come to a hard word, I cry 'Wheelbarrows,' and skip him." On his own topics he was very sensible, and no owner could have found fault with him had he not been just a little racketty on shore. In my refined days I remember reading ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... admirably equipped for my own concerts as far as the orchestra was concerned, yet I had much trouble in procuring the requisite singers. The soprano was very passably represented by Mlle. Bianchi; but for the tenor parts I had to make shift with a M. Setoff, who, although possessing plenty of courage, had very little voice. But he managed to help me through the 'Schmiede-Lieder' in Siegfried, for his presence at least gave an appearance of song, while the orchestra alone ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... have overhauled her at once. Had she been steered, of course she would have left us astern without hope; but as we chased her now, the unsteady flaws of the rising breeze, which we could make full use of, rather hindered her. Now and again, with some little shift, her sail flapped and she lost her way, and yawed so that we gained on her fast, while a new hope of success sprang up in our minds. Then the sail would fill again, and ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... remarked: "It is necessary, it seems to me, that whatever constitutional provision we may make should be made clear, manifest, certain. If possible, we should make it enforce itself, so that by no cunningly-devised scheme or shift can they nullify it. It seems to me that the resolution reported by the joint Committee on Reconstruction is not so clear as it ought to be; I am afraid that it will be worthless. A State may enact that a man shall not ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... rejoined Sampson, coolly, "though I acknowledge your authority as far as governing this crew is concerned, when it comes to a sick woman defended only by a wounded officer, I shift to the jurisdiction of the officer. If Lieutenant Denman asks that I go on deck, I will go. Otherwise, ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... fer Idaho." The bartender's cigar had gone out and the cowpuncher saw that his face was a shade paler. "Then a train stopped sudden one evenin' where they wasn't no station, an' after that the outfit busted up. But they wasn't broke no more, all but the Kid. They left him shift fer hisself. Couple o' years later two of the outfit drifted together in Cinnabar an' there they found the Kid drivin' a dude-wagon. Drivin' a dude-wagon through the park is a damn sight easier than huntin' wild horses, an' a damn sight safer than railroadin' ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... carefully, and from them English farmers learned many secrets of tillage. They grew clover and "artificial grasses"—such as rye—for their cattle, cultivated turnips for winter fodder, tilled the soil more thoroughly, used fertilizers more diligently, and even learned how to shift their crops from field to field according to a regular plan, so that the soil would not lose its fertility and would not have to be left idle or "fallow" ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... Benz,—which had returned to Berlin for war duty,—and our handsome boy had given place to a stolid son of the soil with one green and one blue eye, a kindly soul, who radiated confidence. Outside Schloss Lippe he stopped to shift one of the trunks. Up sauntered an official and asked for his papers, which he produced. Then once more we headed in the direction ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans

... air. "Happen it will," he assented doubtfully; "ah, it 'ud ha' been a fine thing if I could ha' stolen a march on th' owd lad this time! I never got the chance before, but theer he lays yon, fast by the leg! If I could ha' made shift to walk this year he could never ha' cotched me up—eh, I'd ha' had a ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... line. "Now," thought I, "something is going to happen." One of the staff stopped and said something to Col. Grass, and then came the command: "Attention, battalion! Shoulder arms! Face to the rear! Battalion, about face! Right shoulder shift arms! Forward, guide center, march!" And that, I thought, told the story. The other fellows were too many for us, and we were going to back out. They probably had someone up a tree, watching us, for we had hardly begun our rearward movement before ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... front the attack began at the same hour and it was impossible for the enemy to shift his troops from one quarter to another, as our attacks were being pressed equally at ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... and home life above all things. These figures seem to show there are a few people who havn't any home or if they have they are looking for one they like better, which, like the will of the wisp, evades them always, but they continue to shift around, always hopeful, never satisfied, and they will continue to shift around until Gabriel blows on his little ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... reared by his grandparents, and at an early age compelled to shift for himself. Thus he was somewhat at a disadvantage among the other boys; yet even this fact may have helped to develop in him courage and ingenuity. One little incident of his boy life, occurring at about his tenth year, is characteristic ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... passed an hour that threatened to turn his hair gray, and then a blessed calm settled down upon him that filled his heart with gratitude. Weak and languid, he made shift to turn himself about and seek rest and sleep; and as his soul hovered upon the brink of unconciousness, he heaved a long, deep sigh, and said to himself that in his heart he had cursed the Colonel's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... groan and hung down her head, and looked corner-ways, to see how the land lay thereabouts. The tea-kettle was accordingly put on, and some lard fried into oil, and poured into a tumbler; which, with the aid of an inch of cotton wick, served as a make shift ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... final Year; but he has a D'Estrees with him (our old D'Estrees of HASTENBECK), who much helps the account current; and though generally on the declining hand (obliged to give up Gottingen, to edge away farther and farther out of Hessen itself, to give up the Weser, and see no shift but the farther side of Fulda, with Frankfurt to rear),—is not often caught napping as here at Wilhelmsthal. There ensued about the banks of the Fulda, and the question, Shall we be driven across it sooner or not so soon? a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... direction, but the young lady had declared that she had never been on the beach at all that afternoon till after the alarm had been given; and had been extremely angry with Ellen for making false excuses and trying to shift off the blame, and the girl had been much terrified, and owned that she was not ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way for another. This making and ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance, on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States' army known as ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... minds of their countrymen, and they had the moral courage to put their words into harmony with their thoughts. Clearly perceiving that, whatever the sacerdotal class might say to the contrary, the political strength of the Hebrew people was spent and its religious ideals exploded, they sought to shift the centre of gravity from ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... slabs which was jest make-shift beds. I didn't do no work in slave times 'cause I was too little. You jest had to be good and husky to work on that place. I listened and told mammy everything I heerd. I ate right side dat old white woman on the flo'. I was a little busy-body. I ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... something, however, to be said in favor of romantic books, despite the horrible examples at the top of this barrel. Perhaps our own literature shivers in too thin a shift. For once upon a time somewhere between the age of bustles and ourselves there were writers who ended their stories "and they were married and lived happily ever after." Whereas at this present day stories are begun "They were married and straightway things began to go to the devil." ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... cosmos," he began, "I become more and more convinced that the various parts of the concern are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind, Denis, moving a shade to your right?" He wedged himself between them on the bench. "And if you would shift a few inches to the left, my dear Anne...Thank you. Discrete, I think, ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... might be as well to shift the subject and to ask Ruby a few questions about herself while he made up his mind what message he would leave for Mrs Hurtle. 'I'm afraid they are very unhappy about you down at Bungay, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... school-exercise the first, no more. There is not a heart-beat in the whole grind. As to Willis—he failed egregiously, when he attempted to 'gild refined gold and paint the lily,' as he did in his so-called 'Sacred Poems.' He can spin a yarn pretty well, and coin a new word for a make-shift, amusingly, but save me from the foil-glitter of ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... dog beneath the grape-arbor; and when the funeral was over, Brown loaded up his gun, rubbed his muddy boots upon the grass, brought his weapon to "right shoulder shift" ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... shop. It had taken very little time, but the big cadet had lingered over it, trying to find answers to his three problems. Around him, the workers were leaving their benches and lathes, to be replaced by still others. A twelve-hour shift was being used by the Nationalists in their frantic preparations for an attack on the Venusport garrison of the Solar Guard. Astro finally dropped the last wrench into the tool kit and straightened up. He stretched leisurely and glanced over at his guard. The ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... serpent would have to be requisitioned for the assuagement of those urgent woes. A man's moustaches will arise with the sun; not Joshua could constrain them to the pillow after the lark had sung reveille. A woman will sit pitilessly at the breakfast table however the male eye may shift and quail. It is the business and the art of life to degrade permanencies. Fluidity is existence, there is no other, and for ever the chief attraction of Paradise must be that there is a serpent in it to keep it lively and wholesome. Lacking the serpent we are no ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... disk of a magnetic telephone with respect to the poles of the magnet there corresponds a certain distribution of the lines of force, which latter shift themselves when the disk is vibrating. If the bobbin be met by these lines in motion, there will develop in its wire a difference of potential that, according to Faraday's law, will be proportional to their number. All things equal, then, a telephone transmitter will be so ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... here rose precipitously from the eastern shore, as to render the carols of the birds plainly audible. This was not the worst. The third canoe had taken the same direction, and was slowly drifting towards a point where it must inevitably touch, unless turned aside by a shift of wind, or human hands. In other respects, nothing presented itself to attract attention, or to awaken alarm. The castle stood on its shoal, nearly abreast of the canoes, for the drift had amounted to miles in the course of the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... to get up extra early tomorrow morning, for I've ever so much to do," said Anne virtuously. "For one thing, I'm going to shift the feathers from my old bedtick to the new one. I ought to have done it long ago but I've just kept putting it off . . . it's such a detestable task. It's a very bad habit to put off disagreeable things, and I never mean to again, or else I can't comfortably tell my pupils ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... foul weather were very dark and moonless, not because there was no moon, though she was now waning into her last quarter, but because of the quantity of clouds that muffled up the face of the heavens and hid the moon and the stars from us. But we made shift as well as we could, working hard all the time that the daylight lasted, and giving up the night to the rest we were all in such sore need of. Of course, the usual discipline of the ship was preserved, the ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... shift," he said: "John Knox was in the right o't. 'Pull down the nests and the craws will fly away.' No more cells for lads from the ploughtail and the heather. No more bloody whipping-posts, where one or two are killed out of every draft to put the fear of death into the others! All gone up in yon ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... all the faculties of the soul. No man can go out or off now. Now he is wind-bound, or as Paul says, caught. Now he is made to possess bitter days, bitter nights, bitter hours, bitter thoughts; nor can he shift them, for his sin is ever before him. As David said, "For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me," in mine eye, and sticketh fast in every one ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... "art thou a woman, and hast not a sudden shift to prevent a misfortune? I, thou seest, am of a tall stature, and would very well become the person and apparel of a page; thou shalt be my mistress, and I will play the man so properly, that, trust me, in what company soever I come I will not be discovered. I will buy me a suit, and have ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... man and a woman, and a group of horses. Good cause for excitement there in the shack up by the grade. Along the mile of the Tepee that was known to man there was only one raft—at least only one that had a right to exist—the make-shift affair employed on construction duty down at the base of the trestle. Within sixty miles there was not a living soul but the construction gang and the two Policemen at Mile 127, not a horse but Torrance's and the Police pair. At least that ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... was to be the place of rendezvous, and she would take charge of the girls for part of the day, the boys wished to shift for themselves; and Allen and Bobus had friends of their own with ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... how we made shift to cook such a thing as a turkey, other than by boiling it in a kettle, and this can be told in very few words, for it was a simple matter after once you had ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis

... Haendel-Gesellschaft), and the result in the case of a chorus like "Lift up your Heads" was ridiculous. Bach, however, does not arrange old work merely to please a court where it was already admired. He never leaves it in a state of mere make-shift, though he cannot always attain his evident aim of a new originality. His methods of orchestration and the profoundly significant identity of certain forms of chorus with certain concerto forms may better be described under their proper ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... abreast beside the railroad through the narrow gap. A long freight-train rumbled and rattled by, and a little later they passed a coal shaft, where a begrimed night shift loaded cars under ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... amongst the shipmen and hinder them; and withal he said to himself: What matter whether I go down to the bottom of the sea, or come back to Langton, since either way my life or my death will take away from me the fulfilment of desire? Yet soothly if there hath been a shift of wind, that is not so ill; for then shall we be driven to other lands, and so at the least our home-coming shall be delayed, and other tidings may hap amidst of our tarrying. So let all be as ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... by the application of this principle to the wider field of the sky that we are able to ascertain the distance of celestial bodies. We have noted that it requires a goodly change of place on our own part to shift the position in which some object in the far distance is seen by us. To two persons separated by, say, a few hundred yards, a ship upon the horizon will appear pretty much in the same direction. They would require, in fact, to be much ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... there is no bad, these be the whims of mortal will; What works me weal that call I good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill. They change with space, they shift with race, and in the veriest span of time, Each vice has worn a virtue's crown, all good been ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... burst into the room with drawn swords. The monks set up a fresh cry of terror and fell to chanting prayers, and Father Alfred and the Chancellor sought refuge in the shadow with the Prior. But the Abbot never stirred in his seat, save to shift his gaze to the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... cannot nourish their own offspring, but fain would make shift with all imaginable unnatural substitutes and bring up children in whom a predisposition to disease ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... shivered when it was done, and rubbing the knife in the withered leaves, rose, and made shift to gird a rug about the uninjured horse. Then he cut the reins and tied them, and mounting without stirrups rode towards the bridge. The horse went quietly enough now, and the man allowed it to choose its way. He was going home to find shelter from the cold, because his animal ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... saw at once that our capture was a certainty unless we took prompt measures to provide against it, and he was quick to suggest that we adopt the tactics of Forrest and ride at them if they made a display of hostilities. I had just time to shift my carbine to the front under my overcoat and loosen the flap of my holsters when the lady drove up. We raised our hats as she came up, and made ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... "Shift the pegs a little," he said to himself, "and Mr. Brooke might be in the Cabinet, while I was Under-Secretary. That is the common order of things: the little waves make the large ones and are of the same pattern. I am better here than in the sort of life Mr. Casaubon would ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... intra tropicos, vescitur palmis, lotophagus; HOSPITATUR extra tropicos sub novercante Cerere, carnivorus. Man DWELLS NATURALLY within the tropics, and lives on the fruits of the palm-tree; he EXISTS in other parts of the world, and there makes shift to feed on corn and flesh. Syst. Nat. volume 1 page 24.) On examining the provision accumulated in the huts of the Indians, we perceive that their subsistence during several months of the year depends as much ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... "Who's your new shift boss?" Glenister inquired of his partner, a few days later, indicating a man in the cut below, busied in setting a ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... crew, Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, I imagine, by the spirit of adventure, and making his first voyage. In the light baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail. In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff. As I understood it, there were two ways of getting it cleared,—first, by lowering the foresail, which was comparatively ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... the Doc says. I cough away some of these nights like a sheep with lung-worm. I feel all right myself; but ev'ry time I talks about getting a shift on like, ole Doc gets busy with his water-diviner—'breathe in breathe out'—and then he says, 'Say "Ah-h-h."' Then he thumps away wid his fingers. I reckon I'm about as chuberculer as a young gum-tree, but the ole Doc he just says ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... to be content with that. After all, his own sister—but he wished it were not Jim Doyle's house. Not that he regarded Lily's shift toward what he termed Bolshevism very seriously; all youth had a slant toward socialism, and outgrew it. But he went away sorely troubled, after a few words ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... writings, on the importance of conduct. The penetrating analysis, in ch. vi, of The Form of Perfect Living, of the possible sins humanity can commit on its journey through the wilderness of this world, hardly leaves a corner of the heart unlighted; lets not one possible shift, twist or excuse of the human conscience go free. But it all has the Church as its immediate background; the Mystical Body, not the individual soul in isolation, is everywhere taken for granted. Man lives ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... I became aware, scarcely the word escaped my lips, that swift ensued in silence and by stealth, and yet with certitude, a formidable change of the amphitheatre which held the Carnival; although the human stir continued just the same amid that shift of scene." (No. CV.) ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... water felt when he thought of her tender skin. And her pretty dress, that she had set such store by, in which she had intended to go to church with him on Sunday—utterly destroyed, of course! Well, he must make shift to afford her another and smarter one, and get it made quickly. She should have her pick and choice. As the following wave soused his uprising head, slapping him full in the face, so as to confuse and blind him for a second or two, the fear that she might ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... were referred to a select committee on which were placed two ladies, Mary L. Booth and Julia A. Wilbur, both strong supporters of Miss Anthony. The committee brought in a majority report in favor of the resolutions but this make-shift minority report was adopted: "In our opinion the colored children of the State should enjoy equal advantages of education with the white." Miss Anthony then proceeded to throw another ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... said she, "that throws Salvat out of his wits. He adores her, and he'd kill everybody if he could, when he sees her go supperless to bed. She's such a good girl, she was learning so nicely at the Communal School! But now she hasn't even a shift to go there in." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... curtsey at the door to their arriving guests, all their part is at an end. The master and mistress thenceforth transact their affairs by deputy. They are sovereigns, and responsible for nothing. The garons are the cabinet, and responsible for every thing; but they, like superior personages, shift their responsibility upon any one inclined to take it up; and all is naturally discontent, disturbance, and discomfort. We wonder that the Marquis has not mentioned the German table-d'hte among his annoyances; for he dined at it. Nothing, in general, can be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... committed suicide because the painters had come to turn 'em out of house and home. There were a man, his wife and daughter—a girl about seventeen—living in the house, and all three of 'em used to drink like hell. As for the woman, she COULD shift it and no mistake! Several times a day she used to send the girl with a jug to the pub at the corner. When the old man was out, one could have anything one liked to ask for from either of 'em for half a pint of beer, but for his part, said ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... unknown to the parliament, a copy of the warrant by which Charles had engaged to confirm whatever Glamorgan should promise in the royal name. On this account, in his answer to Ormond, he was compelled to shift his ground, and to assert that he had no recollection of any such warrant; that it was indeed possible he might have furnished the earl with some credential to the Irish Catholics; but that if he did, it was only with an understanding that it should ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... Josiana thees-and-thous me," he would say to himself. And he would rub his hands. He profited by this theeing-and-thouing to make further way. He became a sort of constant attendant in Josiana's private rooms; in no way troublesome; unperceived; the duchess would almost have changed her shift before him. All this, however, was precarious. Barkilphedro was aiming at a position. A duchess was half-way; an underground passage which did not lead to the queen was having bored ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... of the smart set. She has of course had the advantage of teachers of all sorts, but the claims made upon her time by thoughtless parents have usually been so great as to leave her at the end of her school-room period with a few brittle fragments of knowledge, which shift and change in her mind as the bits of glass might shift in a kaleidoscope from which the looking-glass had been omitted. It is enough for her if, in place of historical dates, she knows the fashionable fixtures, whilst Sandown and Kempton, Ascot and Goodwood, Hurlingham, ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various

... it is a pity, for after all the Romanies are a strange people, and, bad as they may have been, they were not without their good points. They knew a good horse when they saw one, and they let people see how a man, if he chooses, can shift for himself, without being beholden to any one. Anyhow, they have given clever men something to puzzle their brains about, and their language is not, as some would have it, a mere thieves 'patter,' but is a good, if not a better one, than that which ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt

... in Astro, "here in the storeroom, Jeff will have his eye on it all the time. If Vidac starts getting nosy, Jeff will be able to shift it to another hiding place without ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... curled with momentary scorn at this attempt to shift the responsibility of his wasted and misguided life upon any one or ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... fast approaching again, was not only looked forward to with interest and excitement by the children, but was an event of importance to everyone in the village. The very oldest made shift somehow to get up to the woods and join in the rejoicing, and the most careworn and sorrowful managed to struggle out of their gloom for that one day, and to leave behind the dulness of their daily toil. Many, coming from distant parts of ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... little before supper time. Her first act was to call Betty the servant and with her assistance to shift her bed and things into the spare room. With Elizabeth she would have nothing more to do. They had slept together since they were children, now she had done with her. Then she went in to supper, and sat through it like a statue, speaking no word. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... it does. Of course the engines are continually breaking down, or bursting, or doing something or other offensive. But whatever may happen, the Pirate and his two aids consider themselves equal to the emergency, and make shift to tinker up the mishap somehow. Such unlooked for examples of misapplied force are constantly occurring, the consequence being that repairs are as often called for. Thus it is that the engines present a very extraordinary ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... Hans. 'Many things may happen to delay our journey, and I need not remind you of our contract that the moment the sun sets I cease to be your servant. If we don't reach the town while it is still daylight I shall leave you to shift ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... the front just now, as Mrs. Rymer explained in detail. She, 'of course,' kept two domestics, but was temporarily making shift with only one, it being so difficult to replace the cook, who had left a week ago. Did Miss Shepperson know of a cook, a sensible, trustworthy woman? For the present Mrs. Rymer—she confessed it with a pleasant little laugh—had to give an eye to ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... executive; because the parts I have acted have been in the subordinate, as well as superior stations, and because, if I know myself, what I have felt, and what I have wished, I know that I have never been so well pleased, as when I could shift power from my own, on the shoulders of others; nor have I ever been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... a man has meat and drink love will not starve him; with world's business and world's pleasure an unkind love he makes shift to forget. Bring to me word of thy good fortune this night, and in the morning there is the Boston business. ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr

... made shift that a servant should throw down a bag with ten pounds in it, into a bush, and that Brittlebank—your brother's man—should see him do it! And lo! when we looked again, the ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... rights, sir, to stand for a few days for the mortar to set," said the bricklayer on leaving; and this opinion being conveyed to Aunt Hannah, she undertook that Martha, should make shift in the back kitchen for a day or two—just as they ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... We are still steering eastward with a fine breeze. We make seven miles an hour the chief part of the day. About noon we shift our course and are steering North by East. At two o'clock the Captain says we are 250 miles from Sandy Hook, with the wind West-Nor'-West. At six o'clock we saw a sail ahead. She crowded sail and put ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... air, can one seize the sea, can one grasp the fire? Even so intangible to me the answer to my desire. The elements we feel and see shift and drift and suspire And we therein behind the screen, with glimmering brains that tire. That is all! Nor can I fall now in the race. As a second breath to a runner comes my soul takes up the pace— For I dreamed the world ran with me in ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet

... the page Of radiant singer and anointed sage. Greece was my lamp: burnt out for lack of oil; Rome, Python Rome, prey of its robber spoil! All structures built upon a narrow space Must fall, from having not your hosts for base. O thrice must one be you, to see them shift Along their desert flats, here dash, there drift; With faith, that of privations and spilt blood, Comes Reason armed to clear or bank the flood! And thrice must one be you, to wait release From duress in the swamp of their increase. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the other made shift to move. Spencer, however, meant to save the unwitting guide ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... to the homeward trail with backward glances and something of regret lest the archaean foundations of that mountain of ore might shift over night. There was no sense of fatigue now. Birch skipped over logs in wayward abandon and laughed like a schoolboy when Clark picked a heavy gold watch chain that dangled from an overhanging bush. Riggs' thin legs were being scratched by the sharp samples with which he had stuffed ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... we don't hear, the boy must do something for his living. I can take him in the boat with me; he can earn his victuals in that way. If he won't do that, I shall wash my hands of him altogether, and he must shift for himself. I believe his father has left him with us for good. We were wrong in taking him only on the recommendation of Mr. Felton. I have been inquiring about his father, and hear little good ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... rank breath, reeking of napie and pickled eggs, and I snored back like a good one! I snored for my very life, and I done it so natural, they were well satisfied; and I being such a big man and heavy to shift, they give up the notion of slinging me into the Irrawaddy and went off still quarrelling. I stayed on without a move out of me for a full hour; then I got up yawning my head off, and walked away with the clue in ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... leave you now to shift for yourself awhile. I am going to finish up this business. We know ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey

... what had passed. Then they took me unawares and gelded me: and when they brought her to her husband, they made me her eunuch, to go before her, wherever she went, whether to the bath or to her father's house. On the wedding-night, they slaughtered a young pigeon and sprinkled the blood on her shift;[FN116] and I abode with her a long while, enjoying her beauty and grace, by way of kissing and clipping and clicketing, till she died and her husband and father and mother died also; when they seized me for the Treasury and I found my way hither, where I became ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... no further of the case, How or which way: 'tis sure they found some place But weakly guarded, where the breach was made. And now there rests no other shift but this; To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and dispersed, And lay new ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... Pakistan Muslim League, Junejo faction or PML/J ; Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz Sharif faction or PML/N ; Pakistan National Party or PNP ; Pakistan People's Party or PPP ; Pakistan People's Party/Shaheed Bhutto or PPP/SB ; Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf or PTI note: political alliances in Pakistan can shift frequently ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... her heart laughs looking at the heavens, Thinking of the harvest: I look and think of mine. . . . This I may know: her dressing and undressing Such a change of light shows as when the skies in sport Shift from cloud to moonlight; or edging over thunder Slips a ray of sun; or sweeping into port White sails furl; or on the ocean borders White sails lean along the waves leaping green. Visions of her shower before me, but from ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... she learned, perhaps unconsciously. Her standard of values began to shift and change. Sometimes the dollar-mark grew blurred in her mind's eye, and shaped itself into letters that spelled such words as "truth" and "honor" and now and then just "kindness." Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the moose or elk in some mighty wood. He sees a little ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... that the glory and greatness of the Son of God is constantly ascribed to the will and pleasure of the Father. I had been accustomed to hear this explained of his mediatorial greatness only, but this now looked to me like a make-shift, and to want the simplicity of truth—an impression which grew deeper with closer examination. The emphatic declaration of Christ, "My Father is greater than I," especially arrested my attention. Could I really ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... to spare. A blessing, no doubt, for Lower Egypt, but a calamity for us, for during the night the river rose 2 feet, and overflowed its low, level banks. The water overran part of the camping ground, compelling many a drenched soldier to shift his quarters hurriedly. We got through the dark and troublous night somehow, though keenly vexed by the muttered discontent of the camels, and the persistent, blatant, variegated amorous braying of ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... which troubled Harrigan, but his hands. His skin was puffed and soft from the scrubbing of the bridge. Now as he grasped the rough wood of the short-handled scoop the epidermis wore quickly and left his palms half raw. For a time he managed to shift his grip, bringing new portions of his hands to bear on the wood, but even this skin was worn away in time. When he finished his shift, his hands were bleeding in places ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand

... for more. Some, apprehending that a plot had been formed to abandon them in the vessel, flew to arms. No one assisted his companions; and Captain Chaumareys stole out of a port-hole into his own boat, leaving a great part of the crew to shift for themselves. At length they put off to sea, intending to steer for the sandy coast of the desert, there to land, and thence to proceed with a caravan to the island of ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... Broussais, transient as was its empire, reversed the practice of half of Christendom for a season, and taught its hasty disciples to shun their old favorite remedies as mortal poisons. This was not enough permanently to shift the presumption about drugs where it belonged, and so at last, just as the sympathetic powder and the Unguentum Armarium came in a superstitious age to kill out the abuses of external over-medication, the solemn farce of Homoeopathy was enacted in the face of our own too credulous civilization, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... was that I did begin now to see the Night Land from the new outlooking of my distance from the Mighty Pyramid. And it was as that a man of this day did go from the earth to travel among the stars, and lo! should he not find them to shift upon his vision; so that the Great Bear and this and that shaping of the star clusterings, should make a new order, as he did wander onwards; and so should he find that there was naught that was truly fixed, as he did before then think; but all to alter according unto ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... Edmund Acour, for I take it you are he. Now I shall never forget you again, for though a man may shift his armour he cannot change his countenance"—a saying at which de Noyon coloured a little and looked ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... frames. In the drawing-room stood a new grand pianoforte, and light gilt chairs and sofas, looking strangely out of place on the field of war. By the front-door, sticking in the wall, was a shell which had failed to burst. I wonder if it is still there, or if anyone has ventured to shift it. It was half inside and half outside, and if it had exploded there would not have been much of the entrance of the house left. Upstairs the rooms were in glorious confusion. Apparently the Germans had opened all the ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... you living the life of a wild man of the woods in a savage, unfrequented region, while your state affairs are left to shift for themselves; and as for poor me, I am no longer master of my own limbs, but have to follow you about day after day in your chases after wild animals, till my bones are all crippled and out of joint. Do, my dear friend, let me have one ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... rest of the work-day. The right sort of protective aid to boys and girls between the ages of fourteen, when the law allows some form of wage-earning, and that of sixteen to eighteen years, when they may safely shift for themselves, should halve the wage-earning hours (four instead of eight each day or twenty-four instead of forty-eight a week or alternate weeks at work or study); should double the numbers set to each stated task in shop or factory; should treble the supervisory ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... creature would shape its course according to its experience of the common course of events, but it would be continually trying and often successfully, to evade the law by all manner of sharp practice. New precedents would thus arise, so that the law would shift with time and circumstances; but the law would not otherwise direct the channels into which life would flow, than as laws, whether natural or artificial, have affected the development of the widely differing trades and professions among mankind. These have had their origin rather in the needs ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... The influence of the Farmers General has been heretofore found sufficient to shake a minister in his office. Monsieur de Calonne's continuance or dismission has been thought, for some time, to be on a poise. Were he to shift this great weight, therefore, out of his own scale into that of his adversaries, it would decide their preponderance. The joint interests of France and America would be an ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... such a love to such a condition, and such a satisfaction in it, as that they may shift every thing that hath a tendency to rouse them up out of that sluggish laziness, as not loving to be awakened out of their sleep. So we see the bride shifts and putteth off Christ's call and invitation to her, to arise ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... about a week from the beginning of Lent, when there would be a lull in the city's gaieties, and Society would shift the scene of its activities to the country clubs, and to California and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. Mrs. Caroline Smythe invited Alice to join her in an expedition to the last-named place; but Montague ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... found himself face to face with two alternatives: To cut his way through, or fall back and take the risky chance of fording the river, with Breckinridge close at his heels. Of course there was no thought of surrender and Custer was not much given to showing his heels. Torbert left Custer to shift for himself. So far as I ever was able to learn, he made no effort to save his plucky subordinate and the report that the Michigan brigade had been captured was generally credited, ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... back in a few minutes, papa. Your horse is dead, but there is one of the Indians' standing by his dead master. Let us catch him and shift the saddle." The animal, when they approached it, made no move to take flight, and they saw that his master's foot, as he fell, had become entangled in the lasso, and the well-trained beast had stood without moving. In three ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... Sophos to further him in his suit; but if I do, I'll be pecked to death with hens. I swore to Gripe I would persuade Lelia to love Peter Plod-all; but, God forgive me, 'twas the furthest end of my thought. Tut! what's an oath? every man for himself: I'll shift for one, I ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... back to his companion. Shutting off the air, he released a stream of pure oxygen, held her face in it, and made shift to force some of it into her lungs by compressing and releasing her chest against his own body. Soon she drew a spasmodic breath, choking and coughing, and he again changed the gaseous stream to one of pure air, speaking urgently ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... avenged. What need of further holocausts? So Mr. Ruskin loosens his grip and half sheaths his knife, and becomes more merciful and pitiful, though yet unable to do full justice to those who oppose him: for it is one of his marked peculiarities that he is unable to shift his point of view. He judges always by his own modern ex post facto standard; he cannot see with Salvator's eyes, or with the eyes of his contemporaries, and determine how fully he met the requirements of his age and time, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... hills of sand. Of bridges, other than mere culverts, there are but three in the whole length of the road, the only large one being that over the Amu-Daria. This is a hastily built, rickety affair of timber, put up only as a make-shift, and at the mercy of the stream if a ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... midnight the dame came and hung over Birdalone as she lay abed, and watched to see if she waked; forsooth the witch's coming had waked her; but even so she was wary, and lay still, nor changed her breathing. So the witch turned away, but even therewith Birdalone made a shift to get a glimpse of her, and this she saw thereby, that the semblance of her was changed, and that she bore the self-same skin wherewith she had come to Utterhay, and which she had worn twice or thrice afterwards when ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... Austrian Succession having been now kindled, and Maria Theresa been attacked on all the points of her extensive dominions, Frederick made peace, left his allies to shift for themselves, and, having obtained the principalities of Silesia, retired from the contest. That he made good use of the time and additional sources of strength gained, it ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... left. Beside the Count sat his lovely little daughter Nita, and just opposite to her was the mad artist. This arrangement was maintained throughout the sojourn of the various parties during their stay at Chamouni. They did, indeed, shift their position as regarded the table, according to the arrival or departure of travellers, but not ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... outline of the affair which had caused the Belgian headquarters staff to shift from Furnes, and though it was, I fancy, slightly over-coloured, he was very much obliged... So, gloriously, I drove back to the beer-tavern with the fifty-five army rations which were enough to feed fifty-five ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... to be friendly with the senior New York Senator; but one position he avowedly maintained. It was that he was not to blame for being President of the United States; that he had taken the oath of office, and was the man responsible to the people for the administration, and he could not, dare not, shift that obligation; and, more than that, he must give the "recognition" due friends to the men who had aided him in breaking down Mr. Conkling's policy at Chicago. If that was a crime he was a criminal. He was President, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various



Words linked to "Shift" :   strengthening, interchange, crevice, changeover, frock, strike-slip fault, phonetics, dress, surf, pyrolysis, manpower, bunker, channel-surf, workforce, key, gang, typewrite, crew, workday, leap, switcheroo, alteration, transpose, transplant, carry, tin pest, diphthongise, type, translation, day watch, exchange, alter, men, transship, commute, inclined fault, undergarment, unmentionable, translocate, diphthongize, betterment, improvement, shuffle, fault line, carry forward, transition, back, degeneration, hands, conversion, amplitude, substitute, luxation, working day, modify, remove, replace, advance, tin disease, veer, weakening, jump, fissure, strap, cut, move, turn, shunt, scissure, sublimation, shoulder strap, work force, relay, spell, work party, retrogression, geology, tin plague, beat down, motion, convert, carry over, crack, modification, sea change, trick, watch, displace, movement, cleft, go, hours, typewriter keyboard, tour, Denali Fault, San Andreas Fault



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