skift
English
Etymology
From Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”), related to skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”) (which see for more) and skiffle.[1]
Pronunciation
Noun
skift (plural skifts)
- (dialectal, including Scotland, Shetland and Appalachia) Synonym of skiff (“light shower of rain or snow; light dusting of snow or ice (on ground, water, etc)”)
- 1834, record quoted in 1956, Norman E. Eliason, Tarheel Talk, page 294:
- Last night we had a little skift of snow.
- 1857, “A Winter in the South”, in Harper's Magazine, page 726:
- Well, there was a little skift of snow on the ground, and I follered up a ridge of the mountain […]
- 1915, Ed Blair, History of Johnson County, Kansas, page 61:
- It was quite cold that morning; just a little skift of snow. We had not gone a mile from camp before we were overtaken by a score or more of boys going home to Missouri. They had been up to the Wakarusa camp — the pro-slavery troops were ...
- 1919, Peter McArthur, The Red Cow and Her Friends, Createspace Independent Pub, page 244:
- A “Skift” of Snow
LAST night we had a “skift” of snow, and it was interesting to notice the effect on the summer-born creatures of the farm. A plump young kitten that had not seen the pesky stuff before came to meet me from the stable ...
- 1939, Coll, Hall:
- We just got out on the top and there was a little skift of snow a-fallin'.
- 2001, Cincinnati Magazine, page 80:
- [...] money from the Appalachian Community Development Association and from Cincinnati's Tall Stacks Festival, so I rented a car and stayed in a motel instead of sleeping on somebody's floor. There was just a little skift of snow on the ground.
- 2010, Mark Parman, A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting, page 84:
- A skift of snow had fallen overnight on the ski trails, and Paul had yet to groom them and erase the tracks in the new snow.
- 1834, record quoted in 1956, Norman E. Eliason, Tarheel Talk, page 294:
Verb
skift (third-person singular simple present skifts, present participle skifting, simple past and past participle skifted)
- (dialectal, of rain or snow) Synonym of skiff (“fall lightly or briefly, and lightly cover the ground”)
- 1911, Gene Stratton-Porter, The Harvester, page 46:
- A mourning dove had returned to him through snow, skifting over cold earth. It settled on a limb and began dressing its plumage.
- 1921, Ernest Rhys, The Haunters & the Haunted: Ghost Stories and Tales of the Supernatural, page 153:
- […] Violent gusts of wind came in rapid succession down the sound of Kilbrannan ; and a skifting rain, flung fitfully but fiercely from the huge black clouds as they hurried along before the tempest that ...
- 1997, Southern Poetry Review, volumes 37-38, page 20:
- A crest of last night's snow skifts the powerlines, lengths of it falling to clean asphalt broken and askew, shattered grammar of a landscape whose unheard mutter might explain.
- 2013, Carlene Cross, Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith:
- THE PIGEONS SCATTERED as I walked onto the University of Washington campus, crossing the snow skifted plaza of Red Square with an important document tucked under my arm.
- 2019, Elizabeth Mac Donald, A Matter of Interpretation, Fairlight Books, →ISBN:
- Surely a sound like this could only bring cold and skifting rain: it seemed past belief that such a lonely sound could come hurtling through the darkness on a breath as stifling as a furnace. No candle flickered in the windows of the large building ...
- (dialectal, possibly obsolete) To shift; to move or remove.
- 1867, Edwin Waugh, Owd Blanket, page 10:
- Aw could like yo to skift, afore aw […]
- 1875, William Dickinson, Cumbriana; Or, Fragments of Cumbrian Life, page 231:
- And a man mun keep watch at t mill toft / To stiddy his mouter-dish — help him to sift it, / And see it's o' tidily done; / And gedder up offal, and heàmmward to skift it, / And hev sooins as sure as a gun.
- 1887, Thomas Clarke, Specimens of the Dialect of Westmorland, page 1:
- […] teeap wed tak a reet good rin at em, heed brek t' woes wi his heead. Bet he mud rin a gae lang while afooar heed stir a steean i' oor hoose. Ya can haardly skift em [steeans] wi booarin an blastin. It's a varra lang while — a caant tell ya hoo lang — […]
- 1900, Halliwell Sutcliffe, Shameless Wayne, page 103:
- Ay, he left me drunk t other neet, an' he came back i' a two - three minutes after sober; an' when a man gets skifted out o' liquor so speedy-like, he gets a sort o' hatred on't. Leastways, that's what I've noticed more nor once, an' […]
References
Middle English
Etymology
Old Norse skipta (verb) and Old Norse skipti (noun), from Proto-Germanic *skiftijaną.
Noun
skift (plural skifts)
- share, portion, lot
- There be many knyghtes that hath envy to us; Therefore whan we shall mete at the day of justis there woll be harde skyffte for us. — Malory
- fate
- effort, attempt, try
- Make ye as good skyffte as ye can, ye shall bere this lady with you on horsebak unto the Pope of Rome. — Malory
Verb
skift (third-person singular simple present skifteth, present participle skiftende, skiftynge, first-/third-person singular past indicative and past participle skifted)
- to divide, share, distribute, divide up; also, be divided
- to disperse, scatter ~ in sonder,
- to give a fair share ~ even,
- even skifted, evenly matched in number, in equal strength
- to arrange, ordain, cause to occur, rule, manage
- Grete godd wolde so wisely skifte all thynges. — The Prose Life of Alexander
- to protect, save
- to evade, be rid of.
- be skifted of, She was aferde of hym..and she cowde not be skyfte … of hym by no meane. — Malory
Conjugation
1Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.
Norwegian Bokmål
Etymology 1
From the verb skifte.
Noun
skift n (definite singular skiftet, indefinite plural skift, definite plural skifta or skiftene)
Derived terms
Etymology 2
Verb
skift
- imperative of skifte
References
- “skift” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
Norwegian Nynorsk
Etymology
From the verb skifte.
Noun
skift n (definite singular skiftet, indefinite plural skift, definite plural skifta)
Derived terms
Verb
skift
- imperative of skifta
References
- “skift” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Swedish
Noun
skift n
- a shift ((work) session)
- När börjar ditt skift?
- When does your shift start?
- Vi sov i skift
- We slept in shifts
Declension
Declension of skift | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | skift | skiftet | skift | skiften |
Genitive | skifts | skiftets | skifts | skiftens |
See also
References
- skift in Svensk ordbok (SO)
- skift in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
- skift in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
West Frisian
Etymology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Noun
skift n (plural skiften, diminutive skiftsje)
- order (taxonomy)
Further reading
- “skift”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011
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