[ʃɪft], (Verb)

Definitions:
- move or cause to move from one place to another, especially over a small distance
(e.g: a team from the power company came to shift the cables away from the house)

- change gear in a vehicle
(e.g: she shifted down to fourth)

- be evasive or indirect
(e.g: they know not how to shift and rob as the old ones do)

- kiss and engage in sexually stimulating activity with (someone)
(e.g: she had kissed or shifted him three months earlier at a house party)


Phrases:
- get a shift on
- make shift
- shift for oneself
- shift one's ground

Origin:
Old English sciftan ‘arrange, divide, apportion’, of Germanic origin; related to German schichten ‘to layer, stratify’. A common Middle English sense ‘change, replace’ gave rise to shift (via the notion of changing one's clothes) and shift (via the concept of relays of workers)

[ʃɪft], (Noun)

Definitions:
- a slight change in position, direction, or tendency
(e.g: a shift in public opinion)

- each of two or more recurring periods in which different groups of workers do the same jobs in relay
(e.g: Anne was on the night shift)

- a woman's straight unwaisted dress

- an ingenious or devious device or stratagem
(e.g: the thousand shifts and devices of which Hannibal was a master)

- a period of kissing and engaging in sexually stimulating activity with someone
(e.g: from getting the shift to getting hitched, there is an app for everything these days)


Phrases:
- get a shift on
- make shift
- shift for oneself
- shift one's ground

Origin:
Old English sciftan ‘arrange, divide, apportion’, of Germanic origin; related to German schichten ‘to layer, stratify’. A common Middle English sense ‘change, replace’ gave rise to shift (via the notion of changing one's clothes) and shift (via the concept of relays of workers)