shift

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
shift /ʃɪft/

▶verb

• 1 move or change or cause to move or change from one position to another.

  ■ move one's body slightly due to discomfort.

• 2 change the emphasis, direction, or focus of: she's shifting the blame on to me.

• 3 Brit. informal move quickly.

  ■ (shift oneself) move or rouse oneself.

  ■ remove (a stain).

  ■ sell (merchandise) quickly or in large quantities.

  ■ eat or drink hastily or in large amounts.

• 4 chiefly N. Amer. change gear.

• 5 archaic be evasive.

▶noun

• 1 a slight change in position, direction, or tendency.

• 2 a key used to switch between two sets of characters or functions on a keyboard.

• 3 N. Amer. a gear lever or gear-changing mechanism.

• 4 Building the positioning of successive rows of bricks so that their ends do not coincide.

• 5 each of two or more periods in which different groups of workers do the same jobs in relay.

  ■ a group of people who work in this way.

• 6 a straight dress that hangs from the shoulders and is not fitted at the waist.

  ■ historical a long, loose undergarment.

• 7 archaic an ingenious or devious device or stratagem.

– phrases
make shift dated manage to do something.
shift for oneself manage alone as best one can.
shift one's ground change one's position in an argument.

– derivatives
shiftable adjective,
shifter noun.

– origin OE sciftan ‘arrange, divide, apportion’ (also ME, ‘change, replace’), of Gmc origin.