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Barter; exchange. Permutation lock, a lock in which the parts can be transposed or shifted, so as to require different arrangements of the tumblers on different occasions of unlocking.

A device for giving shifting effects of color to a photograph. The unmounted print, made translucent, is illuminated from behind with colored light.

A bulkhead in the hold of a vessel, to prevent grain, etc., from shifting. Pouch mouth, a mouth with blubbered or swollen lips.

To shift or turn from one side to the other, from the direct course, or from truth; to speak with equivocation; to shuffle; to quibble; as, he prevaricates in his statement. He prevaricates with his own understanding. South.

about and beg; to seek food or other supplies by low arts; to seek for advantage by mean shift or tricks. [Low] A perfect artist in progging for money. Fuller. I have been endeavoring to prog for you. Burke.

A shift for evasion or delay; an evasion; an excuse. L'Estrange.

A shift or turn from the point in question; a trifling or evasive distinction; an evasion; a cavil. Quibbles have no place in the search after truth. I. Watts.

sudden turn; a starting from the point or line; hence, an artful evasion or subterfuge; a shift; a quibble; as, the quirks of a pettifogger. "Some quirk or . . . evasion." Spenser. We ground the justification of our nonconformity on dark subtilties and intricate quirks. Barrow.

at, who moves the cargo, loads and unloads wood, and the like; in an opprobrious sense, a shiftless vagrant who lives by chance jobs. [Western U.S.]

wkwardly; to be shuffling, irregular, or unsteady; to sprawl; to shamble. "Some scambling shifts." Dr. H. More. "A fine old hall, but a scambling house." Evelyn.

s, used to give an appearance of reality to the action of a play; as, to paint scenes; to shift the scenes; to go behind the scenes.

up a cliff or a tree. Now after a while Little-faith came to himself, and getting up made shift to scrabble on his way. Bunyan.

A shiftless fellow; a low, itinerant beggar; a vagabond; a tramp. [Prov. Eng. & Colloq. U.S.] Forby. All the poor old shacks about the town found a friend in Deacon Marble. H. W. Beecher. Common of shack (Eng.Law), the right of persons occupying lands lying together in the same common field to turn out their cattle to…

To live by shifts and stratagems. Beau & Fl.

Petty rapine; trick; also, seeking a livelihood by shifts and dishonest devices.

escape; to neglect; -- implying unfaithfulness or fraud; as, to shirk duty. The usual makeshift by which they try to shirk difficulties. Hare.

To change one's position; to shift ground; to evade questions; to resort to equivocation; to prevaricate. I muself, . . . hiding mine honor in my necessity, am fain to shuffle. Shak.

e side; especially, to turn off, as a grain or a car upon a side track; to switch off; to shift. For shunting your late partner on to me. T. Hughes.

Performed by one person, or one on each side; as, a single combat. These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, . . . Who now defles thee thrice ti single fight. Milton.

bliquity; perverse; dishonest; corrupt; as, sinister aims. Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts. Bacon. He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior arts. South. He read in their looks . . . sinister intentions directed particularly toward himself. Sir W. Scott.