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Shift   /ʃɪft/   Listen
Shift

noun
1.
An event in which something is displaced without rotation.  Synonym: displacement.
2.
A qualitative change.  Synonyms: transformation, transmutation.
3.
The time period during which you are at work.  Synonyms: duty period, work shift.
4.
The act of changing one thing or position for another.  Synonyms: switch, switching.
5.
The act of moving from one place to another.  Synonym: shifting.
6.
(geology) a crack in the earth's crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other.  Synonyms: break, fault, faulting, fracture, geological fault.  "He studied the faulting of the earth's crust"
7.
A crew of workers who work for a specific period of time.
8.
The key on the typewriter keyboard that shifts from lower-case letters to upper-case letters.  Synonym: shift key.
9.
A woman's sleeveless undergarment.  Synonyms: chemise, shimmy, slip, teddy.
10.
A loose-fitting dress hanging straight from the shoulders without a waist.  Synonyms: chemise, sack.



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"Shift" Quotes from Famous Books



... more. As the possibilities of his production grew plainer to him, Luck knew that he could not slight a single scene nor skimp it in the making. He could go hungry if it came to that, but he could not cheapen his story by using make-shift settings. ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... he will," replied the parent with a compression of his thin lips and a flash of his eyes; "when I yield to a boy fourteen years old, it will be time to shift me off to ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... principal objects had relation to the fault of definition when the telescope is pointed low (which I had remarked on the preceding night), and were, to make ourselves acquainted with the mechanism of the mirror's mounting generally, and to measure in various ways whether the mirror actually does shift its place when the telescope is set to different angles of elevation. For the latter we found that the mirror actually does tilt 1/4 of an inch when the tube points low. This of itself will not account for the fault but ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... though she and her captain had to fall back on what could be borrowed from the troop kitchen. No, the oven door was open, the precious chickens, brown, basted and done to a turn, were waiting Suey's deft hands to shift them to the platter. (No need to heat it even on a December day.) Mrs. Stannard's quick and comprehensive glance took in every detail. The "stick" was obviously figurative—mere vernacular—yet something serious, for Suey's ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... dapper people not unfrequently enjoy—tones between those of a man and a boy. The substance of the whole story was this. Tier had been left ashore, as sometimes happens to sailors, and, by necessary connection, was left to shift for himself. After making some vain endeavours to rejoin his brig, he had shipped in one vessel after another, until he accidentally found himself in the port of New York, at the same time as the Swash. He know'd he never should be truly happy ag'in until he could ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... Virginian; and his strictures are hypercritical. As Roland threw his head back fiercely to scatter the spume-flakes, it would be easy enough for the rider to see the eye-sockets and the bloodfull nostrils. Every one has noticed how a horse will do the ear-shift, putting one ear forward and one back at the same moment. Browning has an imaginative reason for it. One ear is pushed forward to listen for danger ahead; the other bent back, to catch his master's voice. Was there ever a greater ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... unintentionally comic, but wonderful effects were produced by very slight movements. When a puppet was delivering a tirade, the listener, standing as motionless as one of the knights at Catania, would sometimes turn his head almost imperceptibly, or shift his weight from one leg to the other, or place his right hand on his hip with his arm a-kimbo. The action not only expressed contempt, acquiescence, or boredom as the case required, but vivified the whole scene, spreading over it like the ripples from a pebble ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... command. It is a name you may have seen in GALLO BELGICUS, the SWEDISH INTELLIGENCER, or, if you read High Dutch, in the FLIEGENDEN MERCOEUR of Leipsic. My father, my lord, having by unthrifty courses reduced a fair patrimony to a nonentity, I had no better shift, when I was eighteen years auld, than to carry the learning whilk I had acquired at the Mareschal-College of Aberdeen, my gentle bluid and designation of Drumthwacket, together with a pair of stalwarth arms, and legs conform, to the German wars, there ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... more than eight hours a day in industry. It is the same kind of argument that would have to be made, if it is true, it would apply equally against our proposal to insist that in continuous industries there shall be by law one day's rest in seven and a three-shift eight hour day. You have labor laws here in Wisconsin, and any Chamber of Commerce will tell you that because of that fact there are industries that will not come into Wisconsin. They prefer to stay outside ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey

... touching keel; By all retired and shady spots Where prosper dim forget-me-nots; By meadows where at afternoon The growing maidens troop in June To loose their girdles on the grass. Ah! speedier than before the glass The backward toilet goes; and swift As swallows quiver, robe and shift And the rough country stockings lie Around each young divinity. When, following the recondite brook, Sudden upon this scene I look, And light with unfamiliar face On chaste Diana's bathing-place, Loud ring the hills about and all The shallows are ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... pox on ye all, dogs; I have kild the greatest Buck in Brians walk. Shift for your selves, all the keepers are up: let's meet in Enfield church porch; away, ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare

... mutilated by the loss of leg or arm, and the other ten grievously wounded. The ship itself was so shattered, that it could scarce be kept above water, and the whole exhibited a scene of blood, horror, and desolation. The victor itself lay like a wreck on the surface; and in this condition made shift, with great difficulty, to tow the Terrible* into St. Maloes, where she was not beheld ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt His own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? Here, the creature surpass the Creator,—the ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... now a population of nearly three million souls. That such a vast body should be lost to Judaism or should maintain a Judaism ignorant of its language, its literature or its traditions, is almost unthinkable. Conditions abroad may shift the center of gravity of Judaism and of Jewish learning to the American continent. Your movement is one which will aid in training the group that may be expected to measure ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... friction of the walls of the rent, or partly, perhaps, washed in from above. This new movement has displaced the rock in such a manner as to interrupt the continuity of the copper vein (b-b), and, at the same time, to shift or heave laterally in the same direction a portion of the tin vein which ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... this time, on the occasion of the famous retreat from Angers—when the Prince of Conde had involved his army beyond the Loire, and saw himself, in the impossibility of recrossing the river, compelled to take ship for England, leaving every one to shift for himself—I well remember on that occasion riding, alone and pistol in hand, through more than thirty miles of the enemy's country without drawing rein. But my anxieties were then confined to the four shoes of my horse. The dangers to which I was exposed at every ford and cross road were ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... "what do women-folk care about a border, without 'tis a lace one to their nightcaps, for none but the father of all vanity to see. Not as I have ought to say again the pair; they keep their turf tidyish—and pay ready money—and a few flowers in their pots; but the rest may shift for itself. Ye see, Master Alfred," explained Maxley, wagging his head wisely, "nobody's pride can be everywhere. Now theirs is in-a-doors; their with-drawing-room it's like the Queen's palace, my missus ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... walk home, I climbed the stairs to my attic room, as cold as Greenland. It was nearly six thirty, supper hour, and I made a shift at a toilet. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... wave the sunlight shot backward in various directions. A thousand golden searchlights seemed playing over the sea. Now and then through the coppery mists an emerald green berg loomed titanically, and as it slowly bore down upon him, Ootah would gracefully manipulate one end of his paddle and shift his kayak about while the berg lurched toweringly onward. As he gained distance from the land the ocean swelled with increasing volume. His frail skin kayak was lifted high on the oily crests of waves, and as it descended with swift rushes, ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... represents the effects of its principles fully carried out, and acted upon. They never heard of Platonism, or of Pythagoras in their lives, and, consequently, the polemic tricks, and evasions, which have been, as hinted just now, resorted to by Protestant divines, to shift from the shoulders of Christianity to those of Plato or Pythagoras, the obnoxious principles we have been considering, are of no use in this case, as, whatever the characters of these Shakers may be, they were ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... to reduce it to any elementary principles. It will, perhaps, be found on the whole, that vanity and the love of power predominate; but I dare not say it is so, for these qualities and a hundred others mingle into each other, and shift and change, and glance away, like the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... all Day, Others in Gambols with their Wh——es to play; The Dunghill Trapes, trickt up like virtuous Trull, If by good Chance, she gets a Dupe or Cull; On Tallyman intrudes twelve Hours more, And for a clean Shift presumes ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous

... neither of which Fleda attempted to answer, ran off, too, to dress herself; and Fleda, 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 ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... had a gray image as the result of fusion of retinal clouds with red memory image. With H. blue always came in as robin's-egg blue, which then had to be changed to the standard blue. In one instant the green memory image seemed to shift into a purple and change to a positive retinal image which interfered with changes to other colors. J. found whistling and humming an aid in relaxing an unnatural state of tension which would hinder the best results. To ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... retreat was in progress. As early as the morning of the 23rd the Royal Flying Corps had begun to shift its quarters from Maubeuge to Le Cateau. The transport and machines of No. 3 Squadron moved southward on that day, and on the 24th headquarters and other squadrons also moved to Le Cateau. 'We slept,' says Major Maurice Baring, 'and when I say we I mean dozens of pilots, fully ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... sometimes lie amid the rocks, and cover him with that same gun for a hundred yards or so, slowly following his movements with the steady barrel so that the mail-carrier's life hung, as it were, on the touch of a trigger for minutes together. Pedro Casavel seemed to shift his hiding place, as if he were seeking to perfect certain details of light and range and elevation. Perhaps it was only a grim enjoyment which he gathered from thus holding the Mule's life in his hand for five or six minutes two or three times a week; perhaps, after all, he was that base ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... information than that furnished me by Mr. Grand, that the funds of the United States here are exhausted, and himself considerably in advance; and by the Board of Treasury at New York, that they have no immediate prospect of furnishing us supplies. We are thus left to shift for ourselves, without previous warning. As soon as they shall replenish Mr. Grand's hands, I will give you notice, that you may recommence your usual drafts on him; unless the board should provide a separate fund for you, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... war. The French king, in order to raise the drooping spirits of his people, claimed the victory, and published an account of the action, which, at this distance of time, plainly proves that he was reduced to the mean shift of imposing upon his subjects, by false and partial representations. Among other exaggerations in this detail, we find mention made of mischief done to French ships by English bombs; though nothing is more certain than that there was not one bomb vessel in the combined ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... positively detest this little Chrysantheme, and when there is no repugnance on either side, habit turns into a make-shift ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... prisoner being to all appearance in a state of desperation, made shift to ask the L.C.J. that his relations might be allowed to come to him during the short time he had ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... headed 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 ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... Wilton than with Ridgley. The home team was outgeneraled. By a series of strong rushes the visitors carried the ball sixty-five yards for a well-earned touchdown. The baffling thing about their play was a sudden shift; the quarter-back began to shout his numbers, then he yelled "Shift" and with a quick jump several members of the Wilton team took new positions; almost instantly the pigskin was snapped and before the Ridgley players had the Wilton runner down, the ball was five or ten yards nearer their ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... limb of Satan, that sardonic bully of the desert days, but a gay wood-god intent upon the gentle ways of wooing. At first the bride turned away her senses from his offerings to eye and nostril; for a time she made shift to turn aside from the flowers that he cast for her feet to tread. But after a time, like one in a trance, she began to yield up her indifference and aloofness. The magic of the riotous spring began to intoxicate her. I saw her turn to the sailor and smile a gracious smile. And after awhile ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... harbour, making for the place where I was. I made a sign with the linen of my turban, and called to the crew as loud as I could. They heard me, and sent a boat to bring me on board, when they asked by what misfortune I came thither; I told them that I had suffered shipwreck two days before, and made shift to get ashore with the goods they saw. It was fortunate for me that these people did not consider the place where I was, nor enquire into the probability of what I told them; but without hesitation took me on board ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... "We can make shift to stable the horses between some of the walls outside, and ourselves in the tower," said Ellerey. "It might be worse, Stefan, and with fortune ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... commonly heard is that women do not want to vote. Suppose they do not, gentlemen; that is no excuse for you, for it is a matter out of their jurisdiction—a thing which you control, and as they have no power, they have no responsibility, and you can not shift it thus from your shoulders. But they do want it; the best, most intelligent, thoughtful women—those of whom we are proud—do want it, and it is only those who are either ignorant or selfish who say, "I have all the rights I want." This sounds hard, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... overtake him, which made me think he took shelter under some bush, which he knew where to find, though I did not. Meanwhile, the coachman, who had sufficiently the outside of a man, excused himself from intermeddling under pretence that he durst not leave his horses, and so left me to shift for myself; and I was gone so far beyond my knowledge, that I understood not which way I was to go, till by halloing, and being halloed to again, I was directed ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... line-house, the outriders kept on and made the circuit, thus keeping every one well informed and breaking the monotony. These measures were expected to cause the rustling operations to cease at once, but the effect was to shift the losses to the Double Arrow, the line-houses of which boasted only one puncher each. Unreasonable economy usually ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... The work was as hard as it could well be. There was not a moment's cessation from Monday morning till Saturday night, when we were generally beaten out, and glad to have a full night's rest, a wash and shift of clothes, and a quiet Sunday. During all this time— which would have startled Dr. Graham— we lived upon almost nothing but fresh beef; fried beefsteaks, three times a day,— morning, noon, and night. At morning and night we had a quart of tea to each man, and an ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... I could really be of use to you, I would stay with you. If I could help you to face your troubles, I would stay with you. But I can't, and I mean to shift for myself. ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... Kilby does not know you. I doubt that he ever saw you, though, as I said, he followed you with the natives that night in Apia. He was to come to see me to-day. I think I intended to tell him all, and shift—the duty—of punishment on his shoulders, which I do not doubt he would fulfil. But he shall not know. Do not ask why. I have changed my mind, that is all. But still the account remains a long one. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... took over at the ARTC radar room at National Airport, the air traffic was light so only one man was watching the radarscope. The senior traffic controller and the six other traffic controllers on the shift were out of the room at eleven-forty, when the man watching the radarscope noticed a group of seven targets appear. From their position on the scope he knew that they were just east and a little south of Andrews AFB. In a way the targets looked like a formation ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... the trader, giving his gun to Umgolo to carry, lifted the boy up in his arms, and hurried with him down the hill towards the camp. Had the boy been a Zulu, Umgolo would probably have recommended that he should be left to shift for himself, but observing his white skin he ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston

... passengers put together. If the ship was "down by the head," and would not steer, he would go and move his "trunk" further aft, and then watch the effect. If the ship was "by the stern," he would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to "shift that baggage." In storms he had to be gagged, because his wailings about his "trunk" made it impossible for the men to hear the orders. The man does not appear to have been openly charged with any gravely unbecoming thing, but it is noted in the ship's log as a "curious circumstance" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the island that is ahead of the times. You haven't even got silk shoe-laces. I actually had to use a cloth-of-gold sandal strap to lace my oxfords, and when I lost a cuff-link I was obliged to make shift with two sides of one of Queen Agothonike's ear-rings that I found in the museum at the palace. And that isn't all," went on the lady, wrong kindling wrong, "what do you do for paper and envelopes? There is not a quire to be found in Med. ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... pointed to a bank of distant shadows on our left where he told us the sea lay. Occasional stone farmhouses, standing back from the road among straggling fir trees, and large black barns that seemed to shift past us with a movement of their own in the gloom, were the only signs of humanity and civilisation that we saw, until at the end of a bracing five miles the lights of the lodge gates flared before us and we plunged into a thick grove of pine trees that concealed ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... in the midst of the twilight of the berth-deck. In some measure to obviate this inconvenience, many sailors divide their wardrobes between their hammocks and their bags; stowing a few frocks and trowsers in the former; so that they can shift at night, if they wish, when the hammocks are piped down. But they gain ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... had been well planned even to the unguarded door through which Collins was to escape. In the darkness "Slim" could do the job, make his getaway along with Dave, and be safe from any chance of identification. Bromfield, to save his own hide, would keep still. If he didn't, Durand was prepared to shift the murder ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... old souls, and getting glimpses into their inner life. I sometimes ask them, after listening to the story of their past wrongs, what has sustained you? What has kept you up? And the almost invariable answer has been the power of God. Some of these poor old souls, who have been turned adrift to shift for themselves, don't live by bread alone; they live by bread and faith in God. I asked one of them a few days since, Are you not afraid of starving? and the answer was, Not while ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... outside," he said, "and we're going to level all these slums—and shift into tents on to the moors;" and he began to tell me of many things that were being arranged, the Midland land committees had got to work with remarkable celerity and directness of purpose, and the redistribution of population was already in its broad outlines ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... away from the place where he had imagined he had seen Marsh's face peering at him out of the water, and as he walked along the deck, he could hear the noise of hammering in the shipyard made by the men on the night-shift. Tom Arthurs's brain was still working, though Tom ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... of that condition than anything else could have done. And, somehow or other, it was the last of those scenes which had affected him most. Elizabeth Berry had faced the sarcasms and sneers of the committee, had never lost her poise or her temper, had never attempted to shift the responsibility, had never reproached her mother for the hesitating weakness which was at the base of all the trouble. And, in return, her mother had accused her of—all sorts ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... these subsidies in defence of her dominions in the heart of Germany? Might it not even induce her to enlarge her views, and to think of conquests and equivalents for what she has already lost, which it might be vain and ruinous for us to support her in? Would she not leave Flanders to shift for itself, or still to be taken care of by the Dutch and Britain? In such a case, if France should find it no longer possible to make any impression on her territories on the German side, what ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... hypocrite, acting a play before the world, that to the last he took no more charge of his Speeches! How came he not to study his words a little, before flinging them out to the public? If the words were true words, they could be left to shift for themselves. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... suspecting Leopold, though Burke tried to prove that his treachery was not premeditated, but sprang from "some complexional inconstancy." Pitt and Grenville, knowing the doggedness with which the Emperor pushed towards his goal, amidst many a shift and turn, evidently were ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... no discipline, nor any rules, nor inspection. The jailer does as he likes. So it seems to have been in Egypt, and there would be nothing unnatural in making a prisoner jailer of the rest, and leaving everything in his hands. The 'keeper of the prison' was lazy, like most of us, and very glad to shift duties on to any capable shoulders. Such a thing would, of course, be impossible with us, but it is a bit of true local ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... few days the colonel had orders to shift his ambulance to "C" Beach, near Lala Baba, as our present position was unfavourable for the construction of a permanent field hospital, owing to the rise of ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... morning, 7th, our ships weighing, made a hard shift to get into the port, and I from thence a harder to land in boats. The Duke of Medina Celi, in the interim, having complimented me aboard, by a Caballero de el Habito, with a letter from Port S. Mary, and in person from this ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... where the material conditions of life are highly organised, and where industry is highly specialised, so much is done for the individual by those who organise his life and labour, that it ceases to be necessary for him, except within narrow limits, to shift for himself. In a less civilised community men have to use their wits as well as their hands at every turn; and resourcefulness and versatility are therefore in constant demand. The industrial life of a Russian peasant, who is of ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... shift. It had a heavy, dream-like mistiness. This is reality again. These are the pine trees that I dreamed of. See! how beautiful! With the sharp outline and the vivid hue such as our childhood's unworn sense yields, they are waving ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon

... was rigid; there was some general distension, and very marked local distension of the gastric area extending across to the right, so that a depressed band extended between the upper and lower parts of the belly. There was marked local dulness in the right flank, which did not shift on movement; the abdomen was elsewhere tympanitic. Tongue furred, bowels confined; there has been no sickness, and no haematemesis. Urine normal, and in good quantity. Temperature 100 deg.. Pulse 84, good strength. There was impairment of sensation ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... side; and then range beyond range stretching toward the west. Behind Bukosan peeped Cloud's Rest, the very same outline in fainter tint, so like the double reflection from a pane of glass that I had to shift to an open window to make sure it was no illusion. Then the Nikko group began to show on the right, and the Haruna mass took form in front; and as they rose higher and the sunbeams slanted more, gilding the motes in the heavy afternoon ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... 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 ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... ever since the telegraph line had been destroyed all his family and relatives had felt very keenly the poverty and hardship that naturally followed. The Bolsheviki did not send him any salary from Irkutsk, so that he was compelled to shift for himself as best he could. They cut and cured hay for sale to the Russian colonists, handled private messages and merchandise from Khathyl to Uliassutai and Samgaltai, bought and sold cattle, hunted and in this manner managed to exist. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... growth of the conception of distinctions in the other world,[163] we find first a vague opinion that those who do badly in this life are left to shift for themselves hereafter;[164] that is, there is no authority controlling the lives of men below. In the majority of cases, however, distinctions are made, but these, as is remarked above, are based on various nonmoral considerations, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... of beef, and lay it in pump water four days and nights, shift it twice a day, then take it out & dry it very well with clean cloaths, cut it in three layers, and take out the bones and most of the fat; then take three handfuls of salt, and good store of sage chopped very small, ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May

... are full of soldiers. [Casts his eye round. And in the council-house, too, I observe, You're settled quite at home! Well, well! we soldiers Must shift and suit us in what ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the two officers to see some sharp fighting along the line. Through an opening at the right, they saw a rebel regiment, wearing white jackets, or else stripped to their shirts, march at double-quick, in splendid order, with arms at "right shoulder shift," to the scene of action. It was probably some volunteer body from Richmond, whom the ladies of the rebel capital had just dismissed, with sweet benedictions, to sweep the "foul Yankees" from the face of the earth. They were certainly ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic

... of Bengal. The current is so swift and the channel changes so frequently that the river cannot be navigated at night, nor without a pilot. The native pilots are remarkably skillful navigators, and seem to know by instinct how the shoals shift. For several miles below the city the banks of the river are lined with factories of all kinds, which have added great wealth to the empire. Old Fort William disappeared many years ago, and a new fort was erected a mile or two farther down the river, where it could command the approaches ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... wind began to blow with dreadful violence, and to shift about in such manner as to baffle all seamanship. Unable to reach Veragua, the ships were obliged to put back to Puerto Bello, and when they would have entered that harbor, a sudden veering of the gale drove them from the land. For nine days they were blown and tossed about, at the mercy of a ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... path of the sun are not soft," he says, smoking his pipe and watching the day-shift take itself off and the night-shift go on. "For the sun enters into their blood and burns them with a great fire till they are filled with lusts and passions. They burn always, so that they may not know when they are beaten. Further, there is an unrest in them, which is ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... changes of government even more radical in the direction of Democracy; two wholly new Republics added to the list, one being China, the oldest and most populous country in the world, the other little Portugal, long accounted the most spiritless and unprogressive nation in Europe; a shift from autocratic British rule toward democratic home rule through all the vast region of South Africa; a similar shift in much-troubled Ireland; Socialism reaching out toward power through all central Europe; Woman Suffrage taking possession of northern Europe and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... the men in arms against the commonwealth, the second towards the end notices, incidentally as it were, the additional slaughter of a thousand of the townspeople in the church of St. Peter. In the first, Cromwell, as if he doubted how the shedding of so much blood would be taken, appears to shift the origin of the massacre from himself to the soldiery, who considered the refusal of quarter as a matter of course, after the summons which had been sent into the town on the preceding day; but in the next despatch he assumes a bolder tone, and takes upon himself ...
— 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

... gentleman that I could secure him, or rather, I can turn my lie into truth, and make Vanston my friend. Secondly, knowing as I do, that it was by Harry Clinton's advice the clod-hopper went to him, I can shift the odium of his voting for Vanston upon that youth's shoulders, whose body, by the way, does not contain a single bone that I like; and, thirdly, having by his apostacy and treachery, as it will be called, placed ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... and with what results it was difficult just then to foreshadow; but among the possibilities which instantly presented themselves to the mind was that of death to the two inmates of the ship, irreparable damage to the craft herself, and four persons left to shift for themselves in the very centre of Africa, with nothing but the clothes they wore, the rifles they carried, and about a dozen rounds of ammunition apiece. The prospect was appalling enough to send a ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... very fair weather, and though we were so far from the land as to be out of sight of it, yet we had the sea and land breezes. In the night we had the land breeze at south-south-east, a small gentle gale, which in the morning about sun-rising would shift about gradually (and withal increasing in strength) till about noon we should have it at east-south-east, which is the true sea breeze here. Then it would blow a brisk gale so that we could scarce carry our top-sails double-reefed; ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... now feel myself to sink into a gulf, as an house whose foundation is destroyed; I did liken myself, in this condition, unto the case of a child that was fallen into a mill-pit, who, though it could make some shift to scrabble and spraul in the water, yet because it could find neither hold for hand nor foot, therefore at last it must die in that condition. So soon as this fresh assault had fastened on my soul, that scripture came into my heart, "This is for many days" (Dan 10:14). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the airplane must go hand in hand with the development of wireless communication. He added that the most difficult thing about flying, especially ocean flying, was to keep the course in heavy weather. There are no factors which will help a man on "dead" reckoning; and a shift in wind, unknown to the navigator of a plane, will carry him hundreds of miles from his objective. The wireless telephone was used to some extent during the war for communication between the ground and the air; it will be used to a greater extent ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser

... had not yet been able to take their departure, remained in the drawing-room in a sort of restless solemnity peculiar to seasons of collateral affliction, where all seek to highten the effect upon others, and shift the lesson from themselves. Various were the surmises and peculations as to the cause of the awful transition that ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... it is ordained for defence. Men also, at their first offer to step over the threshold there, with mouth profess that they will dwell as soldiers there. But words are but wind; when they see the storm a-coming they will take care to shift for themselves. This house, or church in the wilderness, must see to itself ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... esteemed an handsome period. It begins with ease, rises gradually till the voice is inflected, then sinks again, and ends with a just cadency, And perhaps there is not a word in it, whole situation would be altered to an advantage. Let us now but shift the place of one word in the last member, and we shall spoil the beauty of the whole sentence. For if, instead of saying, as it now stands, cannot but approve the steadiness and intrepidity, with which you ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... the proud; for, behold, O Appointer of the Stars, as I have sat for uncounted years upon my solitary throne, brooding over the things beneath, my spirit hath gathered wisdom from the changes that shift below. Looking upon the tribes of earth, I have seen how the multitude are swayed, and tracked the steps that lead weakness into power; and fain would I be the ruler of one who, if abased, ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... do it," said Blenkinthrope, who had come back to the room; "if you shift the eight of clubs on to that open nine the five can be moved ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... gear," said the senior skipper. "A big swell in knee-breeches opened the door and called out our names, when I was brought up all standing, for I saw that the peak halliard was fast on the port side. The blame thing was too small for me to shift over, so I had to leave it. But, believe me, she never said a word about it. That's what I call ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... whose presence the trade was consummated. We would then go to another place of business and sign a bill of sale for another horse, and have that witnessed by another business man, and would continue this until all the horses I had sold were paid for. In this manner he would shift all responsibility of crime upon me. Securing my money I would rest for a time until 'I went broke,' and then I would make another trip. The horse merchant would sometimes keep his horses until he had picked up a car load, and then he would ship them out of the country to Chicago, St. Louis or some ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... compartment. The half of the detachment not on duty would walk in, seal it up, turn on the equipment, and wait until the gauges registered sufficient air and heat, then remove their space suits. When it was time to leave again, they would don suits, open the door and walk out, and the next shift would enter and repeat the process. Earlier models had permanent compartments, but they took up too much room in craft designed for carrying as many men and as much equipment as possible. They ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... startling contrast with the gray tones of the walls. A vine wanders along the whole side of the house, a pleasant strip of green like a frieze, between the two stories. A few struggling Bengal roses make shift to live as best they may, half drowned at times by the ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... and abject soul-nausea he shut the book, put it away on a bookshelf in which he saw a gap, and went to turn out the lamp. As the flame flickered and died out he heard Jimmy's foot shift ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... and steadfast, and his heart so firm that he did not even cease from humorous sayings. When he mounted the crazy ladder of the scaffold he said, 'Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up; and for my coming down let me shift for myself.' And he desired the executioner to give him time to put his beard out of the way of the stroke, 'since that ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wandered about by night among the frail huts of the soldiers, and soon found, by listening to their conversation, his worst fears confirmed. It became clear to his mind that immediately on his return to the ships, his present followers would disband and shift for themselves, while it would be in vain for him to attempt ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... a good Samaritan by choice. Female benevolence and female destitution could do nothing without him. Maternal societies for confining poor women; Magdalen societies for rescuing poor women; strong-minded societies for putting poor women into poor men's places, and leaving the men to shift for themselves;—he was vice-president, manager, referee to them all. Wherever there was a table with a committee of ladies sitting round it in council there was Mr. Godfrey at the bottom of the board, keeping the temper of the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... they certainly were the most famous ones he or anybody else ever split. This was the last work he did for his father, for in the summer of that year (1830) he exercised the right of majority and started out to shift for himself. When he left his home to start life for himself, he went empty-handed. He was already some months over twenty-one years of age, but he had nothing in the world, not even a suit of respectable ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... on the prairie once, but the hot, steady lava flow of the great city had reached and split and swept around the little elevated patch of grimy green with its eleven despairing trees. A wooden house it was, and in the very nature of it a temporary shift; but the committee—Hopkins, Hartigan, and ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Another swift shift of the scene. Swiftness is a feature now. In a moment of time, all the kingdoms, and all the glory of all the earth. Rapid work! This is an appeal to the eye. First the palate, then the emotions, ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... came to speech, we made shift to light our pipes; for the bo'sun had discovered a case of tobacco in the captain's cabin, and after this we came to ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... the barque LUTTERWORTH, a companion ship to us from Portland, Oregon to Falmouth, whose mate informed me that they carried their royals from port to port without ever furling them once, except to shift the suit of sails. But now a change was evidently imminent. Of course, we forward had no access to the barometer; not that we should have understood its indications if we had seen it, but we all knew that something ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... part, and he comes out and gives to me his pass-back check, and I return for the last act. That is convenient if I am broke." He explained the trick with amusement but without embarrassment, as if it were a shift that we might any of us ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... journals kept by himself in the Polyphemus, Apollo, and Porpoise, and certificates from Captains Lumsdine, Manly, and Scott, of his diligence and sobriety. He can splice knots, reef and sail, work a ship in sailing, and shift his tides, keep a reckoning of the ship's way by plain sailing and Mercator, observe the sun and stars, and find the variation of the compass, and is qualified to do the duty of an able seaman ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery

... common lot I've shared (We all are sitting "unprepared," Like culprits in a row, Whose heads are down, whose necks are bared To wait the headsman's blow), I'd like to shift my task to you, By asking just a thing or two About the good old times I knew,— Here's what ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... hand, Jack," said Adrian steadfastly. "I am not of those who shift responsibility from the dead to the living. You were grievously treated. Oh, give me your hand, friend, can I think of anything now but your peril ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... after a pause, feeling that he had a duty to fulfil and a responsibility to shift to other shoulders than his own, "remembair, eef you spill zee soup, I keel you. You carry zee tureen in, zen you deesh out zee soup, and sairve. Zee oystaires should be on zee table t'ree minutes before zee guests ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... mark, and none dares say, How it may shift and long delay, Somewhere before the first of Spring, But never ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas

... 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 on the farinaceous fruit ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... it was because young Stuart put a pistol to the captain's head and swore that he would blow out his brains unless he went back for the boat. The captain's account to Mr. Astor is that a sudden shift of wind compelled him to come about and this gave the boat an opportunity to overhaul him. There was a scene of wild recrimination when the boat reached the ship, shortly after six bells (3 P. M.), but it did not seem to bother ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... voice that sounded very strange to Gretel. "Shift that mat higher, boys! Now throw on the clay. The waters are ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... laboriously to wrap up one of the bouquets. When we left the church door he bore three large newspaper bundles, carrying them as carefully as if they had been so many newly frosted wedding-cakes, and left Nell and me to shift for ourselves as we ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... accent of an educated woman, moving to the make-shift table and beginning to "tidy-up." As she passed between him and the light Ned could see that the cotton dress was her ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... grave there," said Cap'n Amazon solemnly. "'Tis called the graveyard of derelicts. But there's the chance of counter-storms. Before the two boats from the Mailfast were sucked down, and 'fore the crew was fair starved, a sudden shift of wind broke up the seaweed field and they escaped and were ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... which the metabolism can no longer support the strain of reproduction. A surplus of calcium brings on senility, as noted above. Withdrawal of the interests which centre in sex, together with the marked accompanying physical changes, involves a shift of mental attitude which is also frequently serious. A British coroner stated in the British Medical Journal in 1900 (Vol. 2, p.792) that a majority of 200 cases of female suicide occurred at this period, while in the case of younger women ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... mumbled, as Smoke shook his shoulder. "I'm not on the night shift," was his next remark, as the rousing hand became more vigorous. "Tell ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... Quebec, the troops had to make shift for quarters wherever they could find a habitable place; I myself made choice of a small house in the lane leading to the Esplanade, where Ginger the Gardner now lives (1828), and which had belonged to Paquet the schoolmaster—although it was scarcely habitable from the number ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... Americans, and one English and two Bavarian friends. The usual beer-guzzling prevailed; some exciting topic was up, and each must have his glass empty when the time for refilling was announced. One of the Americans felt his capacity not quite equal to the demands made upon it. The shift often resorted to in such a trying situation is quietly to empty the glass under the table or out of a window, if this can be done without observation,—and most young men are not very observing at such times. Under the window, outside, sat a party of the cuirassiers drinking, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... when luck served me better than I dared to hope. One of the Swiss guards of the train, a surly, overbearing brute, like so many others of his class, accosted her rudely, and from his gestures was evidently taking her to task as to the number and size of her parcels in the net above. He began to shift them, and, despite her indignant protests in imperfect German, threw some of ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... Emperor Muh, who is supposed to have travelled to Turkestan in the tenth century B.C., had a mysterious liaison during his expedition with a beauteous Miss Ki (i.e. a girl of his own clan), who died on the way. The only way tolerant posterity can make a shift to defend this "incest," is by supposing that in those times the names of relatives were "arranged differently." However, the mere fact that the funeral ceremonies were carried out with full imperial Chou ritual, and that incest is mentioned at all, seems to militate ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... a makeshift for a lost spar, it does not follow that a jury-woman is a make-shift for any body. In fact, the women who sit upon juries are not the sort of women who personally supply ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various

... his charger a donkey, and on this animal he rode by General Scott's quarters in great pride. "Some officers standing by observing that he was, as they thought, seated too far back, called out to him to shift his seat more amidships. 'Gentlemen,' said Jack, drawing rein, 'this is the first craft I ever commanded, and it's d—d hard if I can't ride ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... we should shift the scene and the date pretty frequently in this tale. We solicit the reader's attendance at an ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne

... are like other women, Miss Catherwood. You suppose, of course, that I stake my whole fortune upon a single issue, but it is not so. I wish to live on after the war, whatever its result may be, and the tide of fortune in that forest may shift and change, but mine may not shift ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... indeed, bring it home to him that there might be a scandal at any moment. That odious livery-stable man, two or three dressmakers—in these directions every phase and shift of the debtor's long finesse had been exhausted long ago. Even she was at her ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... from crying or mourning about Jimmy, I suppose, or what's past. I've got to do something for myself now. There's a chance the ice may drive back with a shift of wind, and I've got to try to keep alive as ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... to being hard up, as one becomes used to everything else, by the help of that wonderful old homeopathic doctor, Time. You can tell at a glance the difference between the old hand and the novice; between the case-hardened man who has been used to shift and struggle for years and the poor devil of a beginner striving to hide his misery, and in a constant agony of fear lest he should be found out. Nothing shows this difference more clearly than the way in which each will pawn his watch. As the poet says somewhere: "True ease in pawning ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... we beheld one of "the beautiful fields of England," we had walked all Scotland thorough, and had seen many a secret place, which now, in the confusion of our crowded memory, seem often to shift their uncertain ground; but still, wherever they glimmeringly reappear, invested with the same heavenly light in which, long ago, they took possession of our soul. And now, that we are almost as familiar with the fair ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... which was 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 the parish, ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... Stillwater, in about thirty hours, and it was one hundred and forty-seven miles—as the crow flies—or, about one hundred and seventy-five by the shortest road. He had stopped only long enough to saddle a fresh horse and shift his saddle, eating his meals in the stirrups, and never thinking of rest until he had shouted his tidings for three full days. The patriot country was wild ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... our fate was hard there at Vetchkop; never have I known worse days. The Zulus had taken away all our cattle, so that we could not even shift the waggons from the scene of the fight, but must camp there amidst the vultures and the mouldering skeletons, for the dead were so many that it was impossible to bury them all. We sent messengers to other parties of Boers for help, and while they were gone we starved, for ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... water, boyle it, scum it, and to every ounce of it so boyled and scummed, take six ounces of the blew of Violets, only shift them as before, nine times, and the last time take nine ounces of Violets, let them stand between times of shifting, 12 houres, keeping the liquor still on hot embers, that it may be milk warm, and no warmer; after the first shifting you must stamp and straine your last nine ounces ...
— A Book of Fruits and Flowers • Anonymous

... to change places with the 2nd Division. They were to shift from our right flank to our left and take over the attack on (p. 282) Rosieres while we advanced towards Warvillers. From the cavalry observation-post, I could see with a glass the 5th Battalion going up to the front in single file along a hedge. I had breakfast with the ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... disused or seldom-used canal, grass-grown and tree-shaded, along which, hardly oftener than once a week, a leisurely barge—towed by an equally leisurely mule, with its fellow there on deck taking his rest, preparatory to his next eight-mile "shift"—sleepily dreams its way, presumably on some errand and to some destination, yet indeed hinting of no purpose or object other than its loitering passage through a summer afternoon. I have even heard millionaires express envy of the life lived ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... kept flying round and round, just over my head, and crying pewet, so distinctly, one might almost fancy they spoke. I thought I should have caught one of them, for he flew as though one of his wings was broken, and often tumbled close to the ground; but as I came near, he always made a shift ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... his boyhood loved books and book-reading. His fortune was rather limited; but he made shift—after bringing up three children, whom he lost from the ages of nineteen to twenty-four, and which have been recently followed to their graves by the mother that gave them birth—he made shift, notwithstanding the expenses of their college education, and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... be half-a-dizzen o' Willie Smiths leevin in the same street wi' ye; whilk is a' but certain to be the case, gang to where ye like. I ken I could never get oot o' their neighbourhood, an' mony a shift an' change I hae made for that express purpose. I maun confess, however, that the name's no a'thegither without its advantages. Mony a scrape I hae got skaithless oot o', when I was a boy, in consequence ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... ... each night the beak-nosed pugilist-lad and I raised a merry roughhouse in the place.... Pfeiler was our chief butt. We put things in his bed ... threw objects about so they would wake him up. One night I found him crying silently ... but somehow not ignobly ... this made me shift about in my actions toward him, and see how miserable my ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... Bunyan had ever heard of this book; or that even if he had read it, he should have taken one hint from it. Here the incidents are, 1st that the wilful Pilgrim stops in a village crowd to see some juggler's tricks at a fair, and certain vermin in consequence shift their quarters from some of the rabble close to her, to her person. 2nd. That by following a cow's track instead of keeping the high road, she falls into a ditch. And 3rd. That going up a hill at the end of their journey, from ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... I could not hunt again for at least a week, although I could sit a horse. We had seven sheep, and the group was assured; therefore, we decided to shift camp to the wapiti country, fifty miles away hoping that by the time we reached there, we ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... their black pigtails sitting underneath us in the parquet was not pleasing, and the stage was merely a platform where some privileged of the audience sat unconcernedly. The scenery was—screens. How easy to shift. We had the policeman of course; but, though he kept a vigilant eye on us to prevent anything from happening in the way of an assault, as frequently happens here, the idea of fire frightened us to such a degree ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... get the timbers hewn but we could not make shift to raise it without assistance, and what lumber we have in shape will not be hurt by seasoning, although I do not use it for two years. Now let me show you where I propose to locate the road in order best to accommodate those living this ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis

... we crowded into the hatches, where we joined the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray, breaking over the head of our boat, leaked through to us, so that we were soon almost as wet as he. In this manner we lay all night, with very little rest; but the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to reach Amboy before night, having been thirty hours on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, the water we sailed on ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... said the ranch owner. "That fire still has plenty of ginger in it, and the wind may shift any minute. Dave, you ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster

... burrows, making the entrance under water, and working upwards, making a small hole for the ventilation of their chamber. The female has about four or five young ones at a time, after a period of gestation of about nine weeks, and the mother very soon drives them forth to shift for themselves in ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... of tunes, you see," explained McPhearson. "There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to shift the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three hours—at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the music begins, it strikes one to ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett

... 'The little dogs and all,' etc.: IV. vi. 159, 'Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar ... and the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority': V. iii. 186, 'taught me to shift Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance That very dogs disdain'd.' Cf. Oxford ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley



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



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