Wiktionary

skift

English

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Etymology

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From Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”), related to skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”) (which see for more) and skiffle.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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skift (plural skifts)

  1. (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.

Verb

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skift (third-person singular simple present skifts, present participle skifting, simple past and past participle skifted)

  1. (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 ...
  2. (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

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  1. ^ Michael Montgomery, From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (2006, Ulster Historical Foundation, →ISBN), page 141

Middle English

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Etymology

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Old Norse skipta (verb) and Old Norse skipti (noun), from Proto-Germanic *skiftijaną.

Noun

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skift (plural skifts)

  1. 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
  2. fate
  3. 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

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skift (third-person singular simple present skifteth, present participle skiftende, skiftynge, first-/third-person singular past indicative and past participle skifted)

  1. to divide, share, distribute, divide up; also, be divided
  2. to disperse, scatter ~ in sonder,
  3. to give a fair share ~ even,
    even skifted, evenly matched in number, in equal strength
  4. to arrange, ordain, cause to occur, rule, manage
    Grete godd wolde so wisely skifte all thynges. — The Prose Life of Alexander
  5. to protect, save
  6. 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

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Conjugation of skift (weak in -ed)
infinitive (to) skift, skifte
present tense past tense
1st-person singular skifte skifted
2nd-person singular skiftest skiftedest
3rd-person singular skifteth skifted
subjunctive singular skifte
imperative singular —
plural1 skiften, skifte skifteden, skiftede
imperative plural skifteth, skifte —
participles skiftynge, skiftende skifted, yskifted

1Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

Norwegian Bokmål

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Etymology 1

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From the verb skifte.

Noun

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skift n (definite singular skiftet, indefinite plural skift, definite plural skifta or skiftene)

  1. a change (e.g. of clothes)
  2. a shift (at work, in employment)
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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Verb

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skift

  1. imperative of skifte

References

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Norwegian Nynorsk

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Etymology

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From the verb skifte.

Noun

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skift n (definite singular skiftet, indefinite plural skift, definite plural skifta)

  1. a change (e.g. of clothes)
  2. a shift (at work, in employment)

Derived terms

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Verb

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skift

  1. imperative of skifta

References

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Swedish

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Noun

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skift n

  1. a shift ((work) session)
    När börjar ditt skift?
    When does your shift start?
    Vi sov i skift
    We slept in shifts

Declension

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Declension of skift
nominative genitive
singular indefinite skift skifts
definite skiftet skiftets
plural indefinite skift skifts
definite skiften skiftens

See also

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References

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West Frisian

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Etymology

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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

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skift n (plural skiften, diminutive skiftsje)

  1. order (taxonomy)

Further reading

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  • “skift”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011
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