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Changing in place, position, or direction; varying; variable; fickle; as, shifting winds; shifting opinions or principles.

In a shifting manner.

Shifting the sword from one side of an adversary's sword to the other.

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

To follow by dodging, or suddenly shifting from place to place. Coleridge.

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 change a ship's course so as to cause a shifting of the boom. See Jibe, v. t., and Gybe.

y of beautiful colors and symmetrical forms. It has been much employed in arts of design. Shifting like the fragments of colored glass in the kaleidoscope. G. W. Cable.

robably as early as the 3d century b. c. , often called the first Lautverschiebung, sound shifting, or consonant shifting. (b) A somewhat similar set of changes taking place in the High German dialects (less fully in modern literary German) from the 6th to the 8th century, known as the second Lautverschiebung, the resu…

those used on the tramways in mines to carry coal or rubbish; also, a barrow or truck for shifting baggage, as at railway stations.

hange of key, whether transient, or until the music becomes established in the new key; a shifting of the tonality of a piece, so that the harmonies all center upon a new keynote or tonic; the art of transition out of the original key into one nearly related, and so on, it may be, by successive changes, into a key quit…

ncipal judicial courts. Parliament heel, the inclination of a ship when made to careen by shifting her cargo or ballast. -- Parliament hinge (Arch.), a hinge with so great a projection from the wall or frame as to allow a door or shutter to swing back flat against the wall. -- Long Parliament, Rump Parliament. See un…

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.

The act of shifting. Specifically:

An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, steeping, and shifting the salt provisions.

The shifting of the studs on a projectile from the deep to the shallow sides of the grooves in its discharge from a shunt gun. Shunt dynamo (Elec.), a dynamo in which the field circuit is connected with the main circuit so as to form a shunt to the letter, thus employing a portion of the current from the armature to ma…

A mechanical device for shifting an electric current to another circuit. Safety switch (Railways), a form of switch contrived to prevent or lessen the danger of derailment of trains. -- Switch back (Railways), an arrangement of tracks whereby elevations otherwise insurmountable are passed. The track ascends by a serie…

change the direction of (a vessel) when sailing closehauled, by putting the helm alee and shifting the tacks and sails so that she will proceed to windward nearly at right angles to her former course.

The act of tergiversating; a shifting; shift; subterfuge; evasion. Writing is to be preferred before verbal conferences, as being freer from passions and tergiversations. Abp. Bramhall.