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To practice indirect or evasive methods. All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions. Sir W. Raleigh.

One who, or that which, shifts; one who plays tricks or practices artifice; a cozener. 'T was such a shifter that, if truth were known, Death was half glad when he had got him down. Milton.

ng season. Prof. Wilson. -- Shooting gallery, a range, usually covered, with targets for practice with firearms. -- Shooting iron, a firearm. [Slang, U.S.] -- Shooting star. (a) (Astron.) A starlike, luminous meteor, that, appearing suddenly, darts quickly across some portion of the sky, and then as suddenly disappea…

A marksman; one who practices shooting; as, an exellent shot. Shot belt, a belt having a pouch or compartment for carrying shot. -- Shot cartridge, a cartridge containing powder and small shot, forming a charge for a shotgun. -- Shot garland (Naut.), a wooden frame to contain shot, secured to the coamings and ledges…

Able or clever in practical affairs; sharp in business; astute; sharp-witted; sagacious; keen; as, a shrewd observer; a shrewd design; a shrewd reply. Professing to despise the ill opinion of mankind creates a shrewd suspicion that we have deserved it. Secker.

The art or practice of steel engraving; especially, the process, invented by Perkins, of multiplying facsimiles of an engraved steel plate by first rolling over it, when hardened, a soft steel cylinder, and then rolling the cylinder, when hardened, over a soft steel plate, which thus becomes a facsimile of the original…

One who practices simony, or who buys or sells preferment in the church. Ayliffe.

One who practices simony.

and dexterity in execution or performance, or in the application of the art or science to practical purposes; power to discern and execute; ability to perceive and perform; expertness; aptitude; as, the skill of a mathematician, physician, surgeon, mechanic, etc. Phocion, . . . by his great wisdom and skill at negotiat…

Cunning; craft; artful practice. [Obs.] "His sleight and his covin." Chaucer.

; trade work; hence, a system (usually called the sloyd system) of manual training in the practical use of the tools and materials used in the trades, and of instruction in the making and use of the plans and specifications connected with trade work. The sloyd system derives its name from the fact that it was adopted o…

The qualities and practices of a slut; sluttishness; slatternlines. Drayton.

One who advocates or practices the doctrines of socialism.

An attorney or advocate; one who represents another in court; -- formerly, in English practice, the professional designation of a person admitted to practice in a court of chancery or equity. See the Note under Attorney.

The act of one who soothsays; the foretelling of events; the art or practice of making predictions. A damsel, possessed with a spirit of divination . . . which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. Acts xvi. 16.

The doctrine or mode of reasoning practiced by a sophist; hence, any fallacy designed to deceive. When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism, or "fallacy". I. Watts. Let us first rid ourselves of sophisms, those of depraved men, and those of heartless philosophers.…

The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only. The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part, in usig a word in one sense in the premise, and in another sense in the conclusion. Coleridge.

Act or practice of using sorcery.

ericæ or Virgilianæ Etym: [L., Homeric or Virgilian lots], a form of divination anciently practiced, which consisted in taking the first passage on which the eye fell, upon opening a volume of Homer or Virgil, or a passage drawn from an urn which several were deposited, as indicating future events, or the proper course…

The act or practice of drawing lots; divination by drawing lots. A woman infamous for sortileges and witcheries. Sir W. Scott.