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Shifting or changing suddenly, as the wind; also, having tumbling waves dashing against each other; as, a chopping sea.

ntry; a borderer; a near neighbor. [Obs.] Bacon. Happy confiners you of other lands, That shift your soil, and oft 'scape tyrants' hands. Daniel.

the very jesuits themselves . . . can not possibly devise any juggling conveyance how to shift it off. Hakewill.

admission of a truth; confutation. For all his tedious talk is but vain boast, Or subtle shifts conviction to evade. Milton.

A miner's underground working time or shift. Raymond.

Thew were a fine and Dainty people. Bacon. And let us not be dainty of leave taking, But shift away. Shak. To make dainty, to assume or affect delicacy or fastidiousness. [Obs.] Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all Will now deny to dance She that makes dainty, She, I'll swear, hath corns. Shak.

To start suddenly aside, as to avoid a blow or a missile; to shift place by a sudden start. Milton.

A turn or circuit in running to escape pursues; hence, a trick; a shift; an artifice. These men are too well acquainted with the chase to be flung off by any false steps or doubles. Addison.

A turning and winding; as, the doubling of a hunted hare; shift; trick; artifice. Dryden.

To release from pressure or restraint; to move gently; to lift slightly; to shift a little; as, to ease a bar or nut in machinery.

ng as, to exchange a palace for cell. And death for life exchanged foolishly. Spenser. To shift his being Is to exchange one misery with another. Shak.

Means devised in an exigency; shift.

Doing nothing; shiftless. -- n.

To act on the defensive, or in opposition; to resist; to parry; to shift off. The dexterous management of terms, and being able to fend . . . with them, passes for a great part of learning. Locke.

upply with the feathers necessary for flight. The birds were not as yet fledged enough to shift for themselves. L'Estrange.

h, in sufficient quantities, is poisonous. -- Fly block (Naut.), a pulley whose position shifts to suit the working of the tackle with which it is connected; -- used in the hoisting tackle of yards. -- Fly board (Printing Press), the board on which printed sheets are deposited by the fly. -- Fly book, a case in the…

To cheat; to trick; to impose on. Shak. To fob off, to shift off by an artifice; to put aside; to delude with a trick."A conspiracy of bishops could prostrate and fob off the right of the people." Milton.

l used to prevent chafing; as, to freshen a hawse. Totten. To freshen ballast (Naut.), to shift Or restore it. -- To freshen the hawse, to pay out a little more cable, so as to bring the chafe on another part. -- To freshen the way, to increase the speed of a vessel. Ham. Nav. Encyc.

A passing without notice; intentional neglect; thrusting away; a shifting off; adieu; as, to give a proposal the go-by. Some songs to which we have given the go-by. Prof. Wilson.

To shift from one side of a vessel to the other; -- said of the boom of a fore-and-aft sail when the vessel is steered off the wind until the sail fills on the opposite side. [Also jibe.]