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noun
Shift  n.  
1.
The act of shifting. Specifically:
(a)
The act of putting one thing in the place of another, or of changing the place of a thing; change; substitution. "My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air."
(b)
A turning from one thing to another; hence, an expedient tried in difficulty; often, an evasion; a trick; a fraud. "Reduced to pitiable shifts." "I 'll find a thousand shifts to get away." "Little souls on little shifts rely."
2.
Something frequently shifted; especially, a woman's under-garment; a chemise.
3.
The change of one set of workmen for another; hence, a spell, or turn, of work; also, a set of workmen who work in turn with other sets; as, a night shift.
4.
In building, the extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
5.
(Mining) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
6.
(Mus.) A change of the position of the hand on the finger board, in playing the violin.
To make shift, to contrive or manage in an exigency. "I shall make shift to go without him." "(They) made a shift to keep their own in Ireland."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shift" Quotes from Famous Books



... gone, 'squire Limberhamo, for the easiest fool I ever knew, next my naunt of fairies in the Alchemist[4]. I have escaped, thanks to my mistress's lingua Franca: I'll steal to my chamber, shift my perriwig and clothes; and then, with the help of resty Gervase, concert the business of the next campaign. My father sticks in my stomach still; but I am resolved to be Woodall with him, and Aldo with the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... eyes became fixed upon that group of dials again. Their indicators began to shift, some rapidly, some slowly. Once the agent gave a swift glance through a round window—the place seemed to be lighted by ordinary daylight—and Smith ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... created by the making of statues, it seems clear that this custom must have given more concrete shape to the belief that all of those elements of the dead man's individuality which left his body at the time of death could shift as a shadowy ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith

... big Nile year, not a flood, but enough and to spare. A blessing, no doubt, for Lower Egypt, but a calamity for us, for during the night the river rose 2 feet, and overflowed its low, level banks. The water overran part of the camping ground, compelling many a drenched soldier to shift his quarters hurriedly. We got through the dark and troublous night somehow, though keenly vexed by the muttered discontent of the camels, and the persistent, blatant, variegated amorous braying of 500 donkeys. ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... shift he could to grasp these practical ideas, and he obediently ate of whatever his wife bade him. She would not let him hurry his breakfast in the least, and when he had at last finished, she said, "Now you can go, David. And when you've found the boy, don't you let him out ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... helpless girl in the wood, his own successful defence, and the journey to the farmhouse in the gathering darkness. Paul gave himself a shake to see how he felt, and decided that although stiff and bruised, and crippled in the left arm, he might yet make shift to rise and dress himself. He saw his clothes all laid out in readiness for him, and it was plain that some good friend had sat up far into the night brushing and mending them; for they had been in somewhat sorry plight after his adventure ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the ends of the year meet very comfortably. As I have no estate to leave behind, I am not troubled with the importunate officiousness of relations or legacy hunters, and I consider the world as made for me, not me for the world. It is my maxim, therefore, to enjoy it while I can, and let futurity shift ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... from crying or mourning about Jimmy, I suppose, or what's past. I've got to do something for myself now. There's a chance the ice may drive back with a shift of wind, and I've got to try to keep alive as ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... be so," said Van der Kemp in a dubious tone; "but the sounds, though faint, seem to me a good deal nearer. I can't help thinking that the craters which have so recently opened up in Krakatoa are still active, and that it may be necessary for me to shift my quarters, for my cave is little more, I suspect, than the throat ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... allowances for the unexpected, I managed to put together a chain of details, trusting, with the blind faith of a fatalist, that these would somehow fall into line when the hour came. If they failed, as was likely, I determined to shift them about in any way possible as each fresh emergency arose. I realized how small a part any preliminary survey holds in such an enterprise as now fronted me, an enterprise to be worked out amid darkness and grave personal peril, where any bungling act or ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... treachery of his companion in guilt, and endeavours to be first in disclosing it. In the case I am now speaking of, this experience was never more verified than in the attempt on the part of these two murderers each to shift the guilt on to ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... to the front just now, as Mrs. Rymer explained in detail. She, 'of course,' kept two domestics, but was temporarily making shift with only one, it being so difficult to replace the cook, who had left a week ago. Did Miss Shepperson know of a cook, a sensible, trustworthy woman? For the present Mrs. Rymer—she confessed it with a pleasant little laugh—had to give an eye ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... quarter, overspreading him, Lest the sloped rays should strike that sacred head; And he who saw this sight heard a voice say, Amid the blossoms of the rose-apple, "Let be the King's son! till the shadow goes Forth from his heart my shadow will not shift." ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... synthesis includes positive and negative aspects which function side by side. One builds up. The other wears down. For centuries the building forces in western civilization were in the ascendant. Since the turn of the century a shift of forces has been under way. The wearing down forces presently are in the ascendant. Had it been less competitive and more cooperative and co-ordinated, western civilization might have taken another step in advance by extending cultural unification into the political arena. The League ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... how long will it be before we hear the welcome call, 'Shift into clean blue, the liberty party!' and find ourselves piling over the ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... of this shift of values was sharpened by the announcement that Howells had definitely decided to move to the Metropolis, and that Herne had broken up his little home in Ashmont and was to make his future home on Convent ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... eleven, twelve, or one, and then to get up, and with the help only of coffee (which he drank very strong and in enormous quantities) to work for indefinite stretches of time into the morning or afternoon of the next day. He speaks of a sixteen hours' day as a not uncommon shift or spell of work, and almost a regular one with him; and on one occasion he avers that in the course of forty-eight hours he took but three of the rest, working for twenty-two hours and a half continuously on each side thereof. In such spells, supposing reasonable facility of composition ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac

... knowing, the brig was caught aback by a sudden shift of wind, and we have lost our mainmast and fore-topmast," answered Leslie, saying nothing about their further loss of three men, as he did not wish to harrow her mind with such a distressing detail until it became impossible any ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... throbs of pain; by instants; by centuries. In a hospital it is marked by night nurses and day nurses; by rounds of the Staff; by visiting days; by medicines and temperatures and milk diets and fever baths; by the distant singing in the chapel on Sundays; by the shift of the morning sun on the east beds to the evening sun on the beds along the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... country's sake: for, as for me, I think myself happier than they that have overcome, considering that I leave a perpetual fame of virtue and honesty, the which our enemies the conquerors shall never attain unto by force or money.' Having so said, he prayed every man to shift for himself, and then he went a little aside with two or three only, among the which Strato was one, with whom he came first acquainted by the study of rhetoric. Strato, at his request, held the sword in his hand, and turned ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... the way the men who are in authority seek to evade their responsibility. They speak as though evil that was out of sight ceased to be evil. The very existence of that woman is a scandal and it does not help matters to shift it to another of the islands. In the end I had to speak straight from ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham

... silken ribands On thy temples gold adornments, Round thy neck a beaded necklace, On thy breast a golden crosslet. 170 Put thou on a shift of linen, Of the finest flax that's woven, Lay thou on a robe of woollen, Bind it with a silken girdle, Then the finest silken stockings, And of shoes the very finest, Then In plaits thy hair arranging, ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... with the free, outdoor, life of a mountain ranch. Its scenes shift rapidly and its actors play the game of life fearlessly and like men. It is a fine love story ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... rather, early. The "Eyetalians" go by in the frosty moonlight, from their last shift in the claim (for it is Saturday night), ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... to have a good binding unless you can use it in the right way. In my opinion, on a long journey such as that we had before us, the ski must be perfectly steady. I do not know anything that tires me more than a bad fastening — that is, one that allows the foot to shift in the binding. I want the ski to be a part of oneself, so that one always has full command of them. I have tried many patents, for I have always been afraid of a stiff fastening in cold temperatures; but ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... Which I for want of money sold; Because my fortune was so bad We turn'd our jewel into gold. A good shift indeed, In time of our need, Then glad was I and glad was he; Our cause it did advance Until we came to France, And the King himself ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... switch man to shift the car back to the return track, the mining engineer told the lads to climb in and sit down on the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin

... young firs the rabbit had crouched all night, sometimes sleeping the light sleep of the woodsfolk, sometimes listening to the swish of the winter rain on his roof of branches. In spite of the storm, he had been warm and dry all night, only a big drop coming through from time to time to make him shift his couch. Hearing the rain, he was vaguely puzzled because he felt so little of it; for he knew that even the densest of fir thickets were not proof against a prolonged and steady rainfall. He was glad to profit, however, by a phenomenon which he could not ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... come not here to discourse of that matter, Or his one, two, or three, or his great oath, BY QUATER, [25] His musics,[26] his trigon, his golden thigh, [27] Or his telling how elements [28] shift: but I Would ask, how of late thou hast suffered translation And shifted thy coat in these ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... despicable race, Like wand'ring Arabs shift from place to place. Vagrants by law, to Justice open laid, They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid, And fawning cringe, for wretched means of life, To Madam May'ress, or his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... knows what he's talking about. If you want to stupefy yourself with the opium of impossible dreams, go ahead. This is the last chance you'll have, for tomorrow the idealizator of van Manderpootz goes into the Bacon head of Isaak there. I shall shift the oscillators so that the psychons, instead of becoming light quanta, emerge as an electron flow—a current which will actuate Isaak's vocal apparatus and come out as speech." He paused musingly. "Van Manderpootz will hear the voice of the ideal. Of course Isaak can return only what psychons ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... proposed to sterilize are utterly unfit to hold their own in the world, in competition with normal people. For society to sterilize the feeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the born criminals, the epileptic, and then turn them out to shift for themselves, saying, "We have no further concern with you, now that we know you will leave no children behind you," is unwise. People of this sort should be humanely isolated, so that they will be brought into competition only with their own kind; and they should be ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... Minutes was killed—We then after allowing the Fox in the hole half an hour put the Dogs upon his Trail & in half a Mile he took to another hollow tree and was again put out of it but he did not go 600 yards before he had recourse to the same shift—finding therefore that he was a conquered Fox we took the Dogs off, and came home ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... I was riding my Nigger Boy, my regular night horse, and as only one of my mount was in this bunch,—a good horse, but sluggish,—I concluded to give my black a trial, not depending on his speed so much as his staying qualities. It took but a minute for The Rebel to shift his saddle from one horse to another, when he started around to the south, while I turned to the north, so as to approach the buffalo simultaneously. I came in sight of the band first, my partner having a farther ride to make, but had only ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... whose thoughts were bounded by his paunch. They exploited but a small area, and with smaller success than either had anticipated. Though now and then they were flush, there was never a regular meal; and too often they had to make shift with mouldly bread and water, and to lie on stale straw, and even ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... giving his first instructions to Talon, the minister had dilated upon his desire that Canada should become self-sustaining in the matter of clothing, shoes, and the simpler house-furnishings. But within a couple of years Colbert's mind seems to have taken a different shift, and we find him advising Talon that, after all, it might be better if the people of New France would devote their energies to agriculture and thus to raise enough grain wherewith to buy manufactured wares from France. So, for one reason or another, the ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... leading without a break into clear water, was the wind sufficiently free to enable us to lay our course along it without breaking tacks? I doubted it very much; and if not, or if at a critical moment the wind should shift a point or two, the ship must inevitably go ashore and become a wreck; for I could nowhere see a channel wide enough to allow the ship to work in. Arguing thus, I soon came to the conclusion that I must look to ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... night. No wonder, then, that Czech made straight for [vR]ip, climbed to the top, looked around him, approved of what he saw, and decided to stay. He did, so did his friends and relatives and those that came after them, and no power on earth was able to shift them. The descendants of Czech are there still. One of these told me that the best and sturdiest type of Czech is bred round about [vR]ip; he was born thereabouts himself, and should know. I am prepared to believe it anyway, as my friend ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... impossible to enter under their assumed characters, began to thunder at the door with great violence, but a single shot from a loophole, compelled them to shift the attack to some less exposed point; and, unfortunately, they discovered the door of the other cabin, which contained the three daughters. The rifles of the brothers could not be brought to bear upon this point, and by means ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty

... and queen, And cry out, 'Hey for our town green.' Of ash-heaps in the which ye use Husbands and wives by streaks to choose: Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds A plenteous harvest to your grounds; Of these, and such like things, for shift, We send instead of New-year's gift. Read then, and when your faces shine With bucksome meat and cap'ring wine, Remember us in cups full crowned, And let our city's health go round, Quite through the young ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... the mirage shift and vanish And fade and glare by turns along the sky; The haze of heat may all the distance banish To the ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... six foot nine by seven foot six. We have to shift our bed for the rain's comin' in, an' yer may see for yoursels ther ain't much room to shift it in. An' beyont us ther's a room for the chillen, same size as ourn, an' no window, nothin' but the door into us. Ov ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... There was little or no money in circulation. Exchanges were effected by the most primitive forms of barter, and each family had to rely chiefly upon itself for the means of living. The neighbors would lend a hand in building a cabin for a new-comer; after that he must in most cases shift for himself. Many a man arriving from an old community, and imperfectly appreciating the necessities of pioneer life, has found suddenly, on the approach of winter, that he must learn to make shoes or go barefoot. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... the first time in his life that he had had to shift any burden onto the shoulders of another except his brother, and that was different. Ah, how different! He sent up one brief prayer for Riley Sinclair. There was a man who would have walked all day that his brother might ride, and at the ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... ordained by the Ordainer, I will accomplish all this. Their hour having arrived, the sons of Dhritarashtra, if they do not listen to my words, will surely lie down on the earth turned as morsels of dogs and jackals. The mountains of Himavat might shift their site, the Earth herself might split into a hundred fragments, the firmament itself with its myriads of stars might fall down, still my words can never be futile. Stop thy tears, I swear to thee, O Krishna, soon wilt thou see thy husbands, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... of this Truth, and the great good Sense and strong Reason which accompanied all the Parson said upon the Subject,—poor Trim was driven to his last Shift,—and begg'd he might be suffered to plead his Right and Title to the Watch-Coat, if not by Promise, at least by Services.—It was well known how much he was entitled to it upon these Scores: That he had black'd ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne

... the spot and throw him into the sea, half on one side of the ship, and half on the other, for there was scarce a man in the ship but on one occasion or other had some apprehensions of him, and might be said to go in danger of his life from him. But they chose to shift their hands of him this bloodless way, so they double fettered him and brought him up. When they brought him among the men, he begged they would throw him into the sea and drown him; then entreated for his life with a meanness which made them ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... always the same. "Nothing." His voice is growing weak of late, but I can SEE that he makes the old reply. He can't leave his bed now, so they have moved it close beside the window, and there he lies, all day: now looking at the sky, and now at his flowers, which he still makes shift to trim and water, with his own thin hands. At night, when he sees my candle, he draws back his curtain, and leaves it so, till I am in bed. It seems such company to him to know that I am there, that I often sit at my window for ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... the Broadway roadblocks were removed, and mounted military policemen began patrolling around ground zero at a distance of 730 meters. Each guard was assigned to a daily six-hour shift for a period of two weeks; in the third week, the guard was assigned tasks away from the ground zero area. The mounted guards and their horses wore film badges. No exposure greater than 0.1 roentgen was registered. On 1 September, the mounted patrol moved to a distance of 460 ...
— Project Trinity 1945-1946 • Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer

... stopped, we had to shift the luggage to another coach. The driver, who was a slight man, was, for some time, looking rather puzzled at the trunks which lay on the road, and which he had to put on the coach: he tried to lift one of the largest, let it down again, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... lain like a statue for two days and nights, had begun moving a little under the coverlet, stirring first one swathed leg, then the other, as though seeking vainly to shift his position. Now he said at once: "I want to ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... few Nurses can be found in this Town but what labour under some Distemper or other. The first Question that is generally asked a young Woman that wants to be a Nurse, [Why[3]] she should be a Nurse to other Peoples Children; is answered, by her having an ill Husband, and that she must make Shift to live. I think now this very Answer is enough to give any Body a Shock if duly considered; for an ill Husband may, or ten to one if he does not, bring home to his Wife an ill Distemper, or at least Vexation and Disturbance. Besides ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... have gone on very well for thousands of years without this rolling thing. Your father carried burdens on his back. The king is content to be borne on men's shoulders. The high priest is not too proud to do the same. Indeed, I question whether it is not irreligious to attempt to shift from men's ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... shoals on the bottom, but they would not bite—they could see the line too plainly, perhaps. We frequently selected the trout we wanted, and rested the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his nose at a depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake it off with an annoyed manner, and shift ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... buildings that contained the farm products, horses and machinery. Both stacks were afire in several places, but as there was only a slight wind the flames went almost straight up, inclining away from the buildings. But it would need only a slight shift of the ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... his speech in a less rough tone, for he observed that the child had come to see him, though she was ill, with bare feet and only in her night-shift, and was trembling with cold, excitement, and grief. Mary, however, stood still, shook her head, and replied, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... could even see the round white glare of a torch on the ground — see it shift ahead, lighting up tree trunks, spread out, fanlike, into a wide, misty glory, then vanish as darkness rushed in from the vast ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... (old Hector was one) lie at my feet—the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel' is in my hand, for the first time, to be twice read over after sermon, as it really was—poetry, nothing but poetry, is our talk, and we are supremely happy. Or, I shift the scene to Thornhill, and there whilst the glass goes round, and lads sing and lasses laugh, we turn our discourse on verse, and still our speech is song. Poetry had then a charm for us, which has since ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... in goods?-They could take it either in cash or in goods. When they did not want to take the goods, they got cash if I had it; and if I did not have it at the time, they had just to wait until I could make some shift ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent shade and its ancient spring. The wind is south by west at first, but it will go round in an hour or two, and before noon you will make ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... at them with frightened eyes. After a pause she ventures uncertainly, as if she were not sure hut what these figures might be creatures of her dream). Father. (Her eyes shift to Mrs. Brennan's face and she shudders.) ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... of the larger animals move about freely.—When danger threatens, the rabbit bounds away in long jumps, seeking protection in a hollow tree, a log, or a hole in the ground. When food becomes scarce, squirrels quickly shift to new regions. Coons, bears, skunks, and porcupines move from one neighborhood to another. When the thickets disappear and hunters abound, wild turkeys and partridges retreat on foot or by wing. When the leaves fall and the cold ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal

... sic a braw fellow, [fine] In poortith I might mak a fen'; [poverty, shift] What care I in riches to wallow, If I maunna marry ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... Schofield. "Lively now! Tops'ls on her, and two of you stay aloft to shift tacks if we ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... such small bulk collectively that acquaintance with it might be expected as a matter of mere chance and delicious odd hours in window-corners. Here he but followed the custom. All Public or Grammar Schools were Latin and Greek Schools: English at that stage was, by common consent, to shift for itself. And yet there were dissentients from the custom, and advocates of the claims of the vernacular. Comenius, as we have seen, had blown a blast on the subject for all lands; and in Milton's own school of St. Paul's there had been a rather ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... roots, legumes, and greens, so common in every family. Three or four centuries ago, before there were any enclosures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer, and were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead months; so that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. Hence the marvellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh found in the larder of the eldest Spencer in the days of Edward II., even so ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... a shift in the Danube course since the last correction of the boundary in 1920, a joint Bulgarian-Romanian team will recommend sovereignty changes to several islands ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... pupil's history, which, though it contains no events very uncommon, may be of use to young men who are in too much haste to trust their own prudence, and quit the wing of protection before they are able to shift ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... more either of the sausages or of our money; but still we did not know that at the time, and the threat only had the effect of sending Pig off again in search of something that would at least give us the worth of our money. He waited till just before we were going to shift from these quarters, and then he found out a trap-door, through which he got himself hoisted up, and found eight sides of bacon there, with one of which he descended, thinking that would be as much as we could conveniently eat at that place, and so at any rate we had the worth of the sixteen ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... Somebody complimented our hostess upon them. Mrs. Le Geyt nodded and smiled—"I arranged them. Dear Hugo, in his blundering way—the big darling—forgot to get me the orchids I had ordered. So I had to make shift with what few things our own wee conservatory afforded. Still, with a little taste and a little ingenuity—" She surveyed her handiwork with just pride, and left the rest ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... persecution from without, and of treachery from within; in prosperity, and in adversity; in honour and dishonour; while kingdoms rise and fall; and while one civilisation yields to a higher, and the very conditions of society shift and change, is deeply significative, and betokens an inherent strength and vitality that is more than natural and that must be referred to some source greater than itself, yea, to a power far mightier than anything in this world,—viz., to the abiding ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... of the ancients true, that better is a bright comrade on the weary road than a horse-litter; and, dear brother, when I do think of what we have done and suffered together! Savedst my life from the bear, and from yet more savage thieves; and even poor I did make shift to draw thee out of Rhine, and somehow loved thee double from that hour. How many ties tender and strong between us! Had I my will, I'd never, never, never, never part with my Denys on this side the grave. Well-a-day! God His will ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... found it." He flashed the light on the crack and thought he could discern where there had been some chiseling. He made every effort to shift the rock out of its place, but it was too much for him, owing to the fact that he could just about reach it. He did not have purchase enough to exert his ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)

... must have its victim and its supremacy must be upheld. We laugh at that and know well enough that punishing the unfortunate substitute, who sacrifices himself to obtain a sum of money that will provide for his family, cannot regenerate the offender. Indeed, we see clearly that his willingness to shift the responsibility for his crime upon another only sinks him farther into iniquity. The only person who can gain in moral strength is the one who ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers

... from a shift to service industries after the country regained independence; the main environmental priorities are improvement of drinking water quality and sewage system, household, and hazardous waste management, as well as reduction of air pollution; in 2001, Latvia closed ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... the head of the table. "If fowk canna talk on the Sabbath o' spiritual things, maybe they can mak shift to haud the tongue in their chafts! I wad think that what we saw and heard the day wad put ye ower the burn frae ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... and in others like them, the Rough Riders were the equals of the regulars. They were hardy, self-reliant, accustomed to shift for themselves in the open under very adverse circumstances. The two all-important qualifications for a cavalryman, are riding and shooting—the modern cavalryman being so often used dismounted, as an infantryman. The average recruit requires a couple of years ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... wont,— Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth Crumble; for he both reasons and decides, Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire For gold or purple once he knows its worth? Could he give Christ up were his worth as plain? Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact, And straightway in his life acknowledge it, As, say, the indubitable ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... is no good, there is no bad; these be the whims of mortal will." They change with place, they shift with race. "Each Vice has borne a Virtue's crown, all Good was banned as Sin or Crime." He takes up the history of the world, as we reconstruct it for the period before history, from geology, astronomy and other sciences. He accepts the murderousness of all ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... idle conversation of a summer evening: no one paid any further attention to it, nor did even Lavender himself think again of his vaguely-expressed hope of some day visiting Tarbert. Let us now shift the scene of this narrative ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... resumed Mr. Howland, "we've got to shift things about. In the first place, if Belle View were not burned, I should hardly feel safe in having the crowd there with conditions as they are—and things are not especially pleasant in this city. However,—how long will it take to get away from ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... period of two years abandoned one piece of factory work after another, saying "he could not stand it," until in the chagrin following the loss of his ninth place he announced his intention of leaving the city and allowing his mother and little sisters to shift for themselves. At this critical juncture a place was found for him as lineman in a telephone company; climbing telephone poles and handling wires apparently supplied him with the elements of outdoor activity and danger which were necessary to ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams

... "Being thus in the ice on Saturday, the one and twentieth of June, at night, Wilson the boat swayne, and Henry Greene, came to mee lying (in my cabbin) lame, and told mee that they and the rest of their associates would shift the company and turne the Master and all the sicke men into the shallop, and let them shift for themselves. For there was not fourteen daies victuall left for all the company, at that poore allowance they were at, and that there they lay, the Master not caring to goe one way or other: ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier

... alt shift key on an IBM PC or {clone} keyboard; see {bucky bits}, sense 2 (though typical PC usage does not simply set the 0200 bit). 2. /n./ The 'clover' or 'Command' key on a Macintosh; use of this term usually reveals that the speaker hacked PCs before coming to the Mac (see also {feature ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... the Yankee better, not because he regards him as his deliverer, but mainly because the two-handed thrift of the Northerner, his varied and wonderful ability, completely captivates the imagination of the black man, just learning to shift for himself. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... was security—but he wasn't going to accept a farthing less than his shilling a pound for three months—not he! So they might take it or leave it. And Mrs. Moulsey got hers from the Building Society, and Sam Field made shift to go without. And John Bolderfield was three pounds poorer that quarter than he need have been—all along of Saunders. And now Saunders was talking ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the Straits of Gilbraltar he fell in with the Spanish fleet; and on February 13, 1797, reaching the station off Cape St. Vincent, he communicated this intelligence to Sir John Jervis, and was directed to shift his broad pennant on board the Captain. On the following morning was fought the battle of Cape St. Vincent. The British had only fifteen ships of the line against twenty-seven Spanish ships, but Britain, largely through Nelson's intrepidity, secured an ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... grammar in his eagerness to shift the burden of credit to Joe's broad shoulders. "He ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... an earlier deposit in the cave than is the material here assigned to Cratogeomys castanops, the fossil stock could be ancestral to the group of small subspecies provided there had been a trend in evolution toward smaller size. Another possibility is that a shift in geographic range of the kinds of Cratogeomys that lived in the vicinity of the cave has occurred, and that the fossil represents an evolutionary line with no close relationship to Recent species and now is extinct. Additional material is needed before the history of these ...
— Pleistocene Pocket Gophers From San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico • Robert J. Russell

... never walk a-foot, being carried by men on a seat of some elegance, having a hat made of leaves to keep-off the rain and sun; or else they ride on horseback, having their bare feet in the stirrups. All women, of whatever degree, wear a shift or smock down to the girdle, and from thence down to their feet a cloth of three yards long, forming a kind of petticoat which is open before, and so strait that at every step they shew their legs and more, so that in walking they have to hide themselves as it were very imperfectly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... I've ausculted you—sound as a bell, you are: constitution strong as a horse's. Still, a shock is a shock. You've a family doctor, I expect—some one you ring up when your liver goes wrong, and you want to be advised to go to Marienbad or some such place—I'd feel easier if I could shift ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... the gambler, "you listen to me! I suppose if they could shift suspicion so that it would appear you had had something to do with the old man's murder, it would take Moxlow and the judge and any decent jury no time at all to hang you; for who would care a damn whether you were hanged or not! But you needn't worry, I'm going to manage this thing ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester

... territory carefully, and from them English farmers learned many secrets of tillage. They grew clover and "artificial grasses"—such as rye—for their cattle, cultivated turnips for winter fodder, tilled the soil more thoroughly, used fertilizers more diligently, and even learned how to shift their crops from field to field according to a regular plan, so that the soil would not lose its fertility and would not have to be left idle ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... slipped. One pitched right across his path and he stopped to help him up, but the man screamed when he touched him and an officer shouted, "Forward! Forward!" so he ran on again. It was a long jog through the mist, and he was often obliged to shift his rifle. When at last they lay panting behind the railroad embankment, he looked about him. He had felt the need of action, of a desperate physical struggle, of killing and crushing. He had been seized with a desire to fling himself among masses and tear right and left. He longed to fire, to use ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... sight," said the trumpeter rudely. "You're just a lazy, good-for-nothing drone. And for my part, I don't see why you're allowed to stay in our house. If I had my way you'd be driven out into the world to shift for yourself.... And I know others who say ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey

... the gangs, who had completed their shift in sinking the new shaft and had had a rest, he told them to get their rifles quietly and accompany him to the prairie, when he mentioned casually, in a way they appeared to understand, the boss and manager had come across some "red game" ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... the scrape of horses' hoofs on stone. They must be bringing out a mount, keeping Hunt's part of the bargain. Only, Drew suddenly knew, Johnny was going to keep him. He saw the gun hand shift against the rock—Johnny was taking aim into the pocket. Why? By trusting to Rennie's word he would have a slim chance, so why spoil it ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... Roman, a political offence was invented to bring before Pilate. The procurator perceived the innocence of the Holy One, but feared to befriend Him because of the raging multitude; and after vainly trying to shift the responsibility on Herod Antipas, he washed his hands, to show that it was no affair of his own, and gave the Victim up to the murderers. They chose the most shameful death of Roman slaves, that they might show their hatred and ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... there, after the disturbance, but their sepulchres were respectfully transferred to the museum of the Philosophical Society, in the grounds where the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey rise like fragments of pensive music or romantic verse, inviting the moonlight and the nightingale, but, wanting these, make shift with the noonday and the babies in perambulators ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... so—slung on to a stick, and it gaided my shoulder, 'cause amongst a whole passel of plunder I had bought, ther was a bag of shot inside, what had slewed 'round oft the balance, and I sot down, close to a lamp-post nigh the station, to shift the heft of the shot bag. Whilst I were a squatting, tying up my bundle, I heered all of a suddent—somebody runnin', brip—brap—! and up kern a man from round the corner of the stationhouse, a runnin' full tilt; and he would a run over ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... Many a strange shift were they put to. Once Bill had to fell a great spruce across a twenty-foot crevice. It took him two days to hew it flat so that his horses could be led over. The depth was bottomless to the eye, but from far below rose the cavernous growl of rushing water, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... considerable (provided they be early and carefully removed) I will finish what I have to say concerning these trees in the seminary, and shew how they are there to be raised, transplanted, and govern'd till they can shift for themselves. ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... good looks, they be well enough matched, that's sure; but I don't mean that, I mean, he is quite as knowing as she is, and will shift his helm as she shifts hers. 'Twill be a long running fight, and when one strikes, t'other won't have much to boast of. Perhaps they may sheer off after all—perhaps they may sail as consorts; God only knows; but this I knows, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... old, did those Sargasso seas, uncommonly. They are permanent spots, which shift their position so little with the very slight changes in the currents of the sea, that they may be said to be ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... any of the ordinary native craft; but, of course, the great point is to avoid being noticed, for were one of our boats seen up the other river near the creek, the alarm would be given, and the prahus might at once shift their position, and make up the river, where we should have little chance ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... exhausting temperature carried us close to the line. "What is before us," we asked each other languidly, "if it be hotter than this? How can mortal man, woman, still less child, endure existence?" Vain alarms! Yet another shift of the light wind, another degree passed, and we are all shivering in winter wraps. The line was crossed in greatcoats and shawls, and the only people whose complexion did not resemble a purple plum were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... crew were at three watches, except upon some extraordinary occasions. By this means they were not so much exposed to the weather, as if they had been at watch and watch; and had generally dry clothes to shift themselves, when they happened to get wet. Care was also taken to expose them as little ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... of the horse trough for shelter. "It stings you, does it" she cried, whilst the Marquis, from angered that at first he had been, now burst into a laugh at her fury and at this turning of tables upon the executioner. She made shift to pursue the fellow to his place of refuge, but coming of a sudden upon the ghastly sight presented by La Boulaye's lacerated back, she drew back in horror. Then, mastering herself—for girl though she was, her courage was of a high order—she ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... Cheyenne. Must have been several hundred in the race to get here first—about twenty of us won out. I filed on several claims and tried to hire men to help me do assessment work; but no one would work for wages. Everyone is raving crazy, bound to strike it rich, and working double shift to hold ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... if we contend, that every act is to be judged according to its own nature, whether it be good or evil, he will demonstrate, that we render virtue impossible, and exclude it entirely from the world. On the other hand, if we shift our position, and contend that no act is to be judged according to its own nature, but according to the goodness or badness of its origin or cause, he will also reduce this position, diametrically opposite though it be to the former, to precisely the same absurdity; ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... Frank Jardine luckily "happened" on the missing horses "Cerebus" and "Creamy" about 7 miles down the river. They had evidently been frightened by the blacks. Seven of the cattle only were found, leaving eight missing which was very provoking as it was necessary to shift the camp (on which they had now been detained six days) for all the stock where looking miserable. Neither horses nor cattle would eat the grass, which had ceased to have a trace of green in it, but rambled about looking for burnt stubble. The day was close and sultry ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... sea is lashing; But I launch my little bark, Though the thunder peals are crashing, And the sea is pitchy dark! See by lightning's vivid flashing How to shift my tattered sail— Far across the billows dashing, I am floating with ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones

... Lord. List a breefe tale, And when 'tis told, O that my heart would burst. The bloody proclamation to escape That follow'd me so neere, (O our liues sweetnesse, That we the paine of death would hourely dye, Rather then die at once) taught me to shift Into a mad-mans rags, t' assume a semblance That very Dogges disdain'd: and in this habit Met I my Father with his bleeding Rings, Their precious Stones new lost: became his guide, Led him, begg'd for ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Lithicum, with a broad grin; "the truth is, I clean forgot my tobacco. I knowed you wasn't a chawin' man, but yore uncle is, an' he mought have left a piece of a plug lyin' round. My old woman tried to git me to use her snuff as a make-shift, but lawsy me! the blamed powdery truck jest washes down my throat like leaves in a mill-race. I never could see how women kin set an' rub an' rub the'r gums with it like they do. I reckon it's jest ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... first few passes, Trenck sent his adversary's make-shift sword flying through space, and with his own he met the lieutenant ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... did not shift his attitude, fingers curved to clutch, arms extended, until he heard the tattoo of their horses' ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... the windlass, he has loaded in the drift, He has pounded at the face of oozy clay; He has taxed himself to sickness, dark and damp and double shift, He has labored like a demon night and day. And now, praise God, it's over, and he seems to breathe again Of new-mown hay, the warm, wet, friendly loam; He sees a snowy orchard in a green and dimpling plain, And a ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... inconvenience; and will make, by one trick or other, the interest of what they so lend amount to thirty, forty, yea sometimes fifty pound by the year; notwithstanding the principal is secured by a sufficient pawn; which they will keep too at last, if they find any shift to cheat the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the world. Among its accompaniments will be generally found some sort of literary record of sentiments and imaginations; but to find an heroic literature of the highest order is not so easy. Many nations instead of an Iliad or an Odyssey have had to make shift with conventional repetitions of the praise of chieftains, without any story; many have had to accept from their story-tellers all sorts of monstrous adventures in place of the humanities of debate and argument. Epic literature is not common; it is brought to perfection by a slow process ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... you," said Tomlinson, "but give me and Pepper at least permission to shift for ourselves; trust to my known prudence for finding some method to raise the wind without creating a dust; in other words (this cursed Pepper makes one so vulgar!), of preying on the public ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the upper berth opposite Brown's, where it was hottest of all because of the iron roof. Drunk though he was, I noticed that the first thing Brown did after we had hoisted him aloft was to dig among the blankets like a dog and make the best shift he could of crawling under them. With one blanket twisted about his neck and shoulders and the other tangled about his knees he remarked to the roof that his name was Brown of Lumbwa, and proceeded to sob himself to sleep. He had made the journey a dozen times, so knew what he was doing. I drew ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... thought he had gone. That evening we saw another boulder some twelve or fifteen feet high. 'This will be a fine place of shelter for the night,' I said to the Lapp. He replied, 'It is just the place we want. If the wind shifts we will shift also, ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... protection for certain substantive personal rights was obtained by identifying them with the "liberty" which States cannot take away without due process of law. The shift in the Court's point of view was made known quite casually in Gitlow v. New York,[1] where, although affirming a conviction for violation of a State statute prohibiting the advocacy of criminal anarchy, it declared ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... the Lady and the Cryer, about Old Christmas: And what shift he was fain to make to save his life, and great stir to ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... commander took possession this morning I was obliged to bring away my last box. Now, I don't want Liffie to move it about when putting things to rights, or to meddle with it in any way. When we want to sweep behind or under it I'll shift it myself. But, after all, you're safe not to move it, for the three of you together couldn't if you were to try ever so much. So, good-day. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... centralization of wealth and authority. After five centuries of suicidal competitive struggle, the European homeland of western civilization is criss-crossed by sharp lines of division. Furthermore, the shift of production and military power from Europe to North America and Asia reduces the ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... and shifted helplessly about as if he dreaded to go farther into these particulars, and fondly hoped someone might come to his rescue. His gaze seemed to shift about the room without in the least being able to disentangle itself from that of M. Godin. He remained silent and the ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... obedience was out of the question. Nelson acknowledged, but refused to repeat the order, and, jocularly placing his glass to his blind eye, declared that he could not see the signal. At length the British cannonade told. Fischer, the Danish commander, had had to shift his flag twice, at the second time to the Trekroner, and all the ships south of that battery had either ceased fire or were practically helpless. The Trekroner, however, was still unsubdued and rendered it impossible for Nelson's squadron to retire, in the only direction which the wind ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... years lying between 188o and 1887 made a great change in Rock River and in The adjacent farming land. Signs changed and firms went out of business with characteristic Western ease of shift. The trees grew rapidly, dwarfing The houses beneath them, and contrasts ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... chief prop upon which our whole civilization stands. Such a theory, if ever adopted, would mean the ruin of the entire country—a ruin which would bear heaviest upon the weakest, upon those least able to shift for themselves. But proposals for legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of socialistic theories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... following suit, and taking great care not to knock his precious bugle in the least when making the shift; "for one, I'm dead tired after such a hard afternoon. But all the same, I want you to know that I'm in apple-pie condition for that long hike, or will be, ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... a population of nearly three million souls. That such a vast body should be lost to Judaism or should maintain a Judaism ignorant of its language, its literature or its traditions, is almost unthinkable. Conditions abroad may shift the center of gravity of Judaism and of Jewish learning to the American continent. Your movement is one which will aid in training the group that may be expected to measure ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... son—she listened with a delighted ear. But when Father Eustace hinted at the duty of dedicating to the service of the Church, talents which seemed fitted to defend and adorn it, the dame endeavoured always to shift the subject; and when pressed farther, enlarged on her own incapacity, as a lone woman, to manage the feu; on the advantage which her neighbours of the township were often taking of her unprotected state, and on the wish she had that Edward might ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... coiffure; crown &c. (circle) 247; chignon, pelt, wig, front, peruke, periwig, caftan, turban, fez, shako, csako[obs3], busby; kepi[obs3], forage cap, bearskin; baseball cap; fishing hat; helmet &c. 717; mask, domino. body clothes; linen; hickory shirt [U.S.]; shirt, sark[obs3], smock, shift, chemise; night gown, negligee, dressing gown, night shirt; bedgown[obs3], sac de nuit[Fr]. underclothes [underclothing], underpants, undershirt; slip [for women], brassiere, corset, stays, corsage, corset, corselet, bodice, girdle &c. (circle) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... can wait to eat," Sally Taber had suggested; "ole Andy has been dyin' with consumption ever since dat time when he went to The Forge an' got baptized in his wife's night shift—him not being able to get a robe! Andy took a mighty stiff chill that-er-day an' it war like a finger pintin' the way to his grave. Andy war thirty when he waddled into de Branch in dem swaddling clothes, an' he's ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... ship an' many a ship's company have found their grave there," said Cap'n Amazon solemnly. "'Tis called the graveyard of derelicts. But there's the chance of counter-storms. Before the two boats from the Mailfast were sucked down, and 'fore the crew was fair starved, a sudden shift of wind broke up the seaweed field and they escaped ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... disgrace felt that some (it seems) endeavored to exonerate Trajan from the responsibility of having contrived the deed, and to throw the blame of it on Exedares, the ex-king of Armenia and brother of Parthamasiris. But Trajan had not sunk so low as to shift his fault on another. He declared openly that the act was his own, and that Exedares had had ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... off wild sailor jigs. "There was," says the old record, "little watching for danger." Wednesday, August 26, the sounding line forewarned the reefs of Sable Island. Breakers were sighted. The Delight signaled that her captain wanted to shift southwest to deeper water, but Gilbert wanted to enter the St. Lawrence and signaled back to go on northwest. That night a storm raged. The provision ship ran full tilt into the sand banks of Sable Island, and was battered into chips before the other ships could come to rescue. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... quiet lakefront framed by dark pines. There was no one in sight, but a small wooden dock ran out into the lake. At the far end of the dock an old rowboat lay tethered. And—quite obviously—it was no longer the middle of a bright afternoon; the air was beginning to dim, to shift towards evening. ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz

... him sternly, the expression incongruous with the habitual aspect of his broad, jovial, florid face. Their features were visible to each other, though now and then the fog would shift between the rustic chairs in which they sat. Julian Bayne laughed. How easily even now did this woman convert every casual acquaintance into ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... was);—which doubtless was a step in the right direction. For now the Two Feld-Kriegs-Commissariat Gentlemen (one of whom is the expert Munchow, son of our old Custrin friend), supreme Prussian Authorities here, do likewise shift out of their inns; and take old Schaffgotsch's apartments in the same Oberamts-Haus; mutely symbolling that perhaps THEY are likely to become a kind of Government. And the reader can conceive how, in such an element, the function of governing would of itself fall more and more into ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the rottenness of the Uitlanders'; at any rate, it seems to be an undoubted fact that the Industrial Commission of Inquiry, which was appointed by the Executive at the request of the President, was appointed in the confident belief that it would shift the burden of responsibility from his shoulders to those of the capitalists. This construction of his motives may appear to be severe and perhaps even unfair, but it is entirely borne out by the manner in which he dealt with the report of the Industrial Commission, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... living licentiously with his servants, and covering butter-pots with the handsomest title-deeds of his lineage." All the chevaliers de Chateaubriand," says the father, "were drunkards and beaters of hares." He himself just makes shift to live in a miserable way, with five domestics, a hound and two old mares "in a chateau capable of accommodating a hundred seigniors with their suites." Here and there in the various memoirs we see these strange superannuated ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the old fellow, calming down at once into his usual serenity again, and giving his quid another shift as he braced himself well up against the old barge, on the half-deck of which I was seated with my legs dangling down—"All right, your honour! If it's a yarn you're after, why I had best weigh anchor at once ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson

... of fresh spring buds, Set with gold clasps and studs, Fine linen her shift; Her purse it was of love, Her chain was the flower thereof, And ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang

... last, and the Germans moved onward, in spite of attacks by the Belgians that temporarily halted them. With their great 42 centimeter howitzers the Germans pulverized the forts that held out against them and soon compelled King Albert to shift the seat of Belgian Government to Antwerp. Albert himself, however, stayed in the field with his army and when it fell back he was among the brave men that covered the retreat. He seemed to be everywhere that he was needed, and often in the front line the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... there should be the least possible interval between our sailing and the embarcation of the specie, which once commenced could not be kept secret in passing through a number of hands, and might be a temptation to enterprises on the part of the enemy. The same motive determined me not to shift the whole of the money into cases, which would have been more portable. This precaution became indispensable however with respect to two of the casks, that had suffered too much from the violent shaking on the road to be embarked in that condition, and although all the casks are double, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... woman, cropping up from nowhere, came and sat beside us. She had the thin suntanned face of her kind, brilliant eyes touched with khol, high cheek-bones, and the exceedingly short upper lip which gives such charm to the smile of the young nomad women. Her dress was the usual faded cotton shift, hooked on the shoulders with brass or silver clasps (still the antique fibulae), and wound about with a vague drapery in whose ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... Jille came tumblynge after. Our linked hands loosened and lapsed in sunder, Love from our limbs as a shift was shed, But paused a moment, to watch with wonder The pale pained body, the bursten head. While our sad souls still with regrets are riven, While the blood burns bright on our bruised brows, I have set you free, and I stand forgiven— And now I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... passionate outbreak of angry remorse. Addison tells us that he took particular delight in the reading of our old English ballads. What he valued above all things was Force, though in his haste he is willing to make a shift with its counterfeit, Effect. As usual, he had a good reason to urge for what he did: "I will not excuse, but justify myself for one pretended crime for which I am liable to be charged by false critics, not only in this translation, but in many of my original poems,—that ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... minuteness and detail, so much so, that it sometimes takes a series of representations to act out one piece in its entirety. The Japanese are far in advance of the Chinese in their scenery and properties, and their pieces are sometimes capitally got up: a revolving stage enables them to shift from one scene to another with great rapidity. First-rate actors receive as much as a thousand riyos (about L300) as their yearly salary. This, however, is a high rate of pay, and many a man has to strut before the public for little more than his daily rice; to a clever young ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... occupied its normal position and that the light did not fall straight upon it. On leaning forward, he saw two little tin tacks sticking out on either side and holding the panel in place, similar to a wooden board behind a picture-frame. He had only to shift these. The panel at ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc



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