Shift

How to spell shift

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shift

What does shift mean?

1. verbTo move something from one position to another, or to change in nature or emphasis.
2. nounA scheduled period of work, especially one of several that cover a full day.
3. nounThe key on a keyboard that produces capital letters or alternative characters when held down.

Shift in a sentence

• verb

  Please help me shift this sofa closer to the window.

• noun

  The nurse picked up an extra night shift to cover for a colleague.

• noun

  Hold the shift key while pressing the letter to capitalise it.

• verb

  The company decided to shift its focus toward online sales.

• noun

  His shift ends at six, so he should be home by seven.

• noun

  She pressed shift and four to type the dollar sign.

Where does shift come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Shift descends from the Old English verb sciftan, which meant to arrange, to divide, or to order things into their proper places. This in turn came from a Germanic root shared with the Old Norse skipta, meaning to divide or to change, and you can still feel that sense of dividing and rearranging in the modern word. Over the medieval period the meaning drifted from arranging towards moving or changing position, and by the 1500s it could mean to manage or to get by, which is why an old word for a clever stratagem or expedient was a shift. The noun senses fanned out in many directions: a working period (because workers divide the day between them), a woman's plain undergarment or dress, and the key on a keyboard that changes the case of letters. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable, since the simple consonant cluster gives a fluent adult little to trip over.

How the word is built

• shift (from Old English sciftan: to arrange, divide, order)