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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /skɪft/
• Rhymes: -ɪft

Noun

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

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' […]

Middle English

Etymology

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

Noun

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

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

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

Etymology 1

From the verb skifte.

Noun

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

• girskift
• klesskift
• nattskift
• oljeskift
• skiftarbeid

 

Etymology 2

Verb

skift

1. 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)

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

Derived terms

• girskift
• klesskift
• nattskift
• oljeskift
• skiftarbeid

 

Verb

skift

1. imperative of skifta

References

• “skift” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Swedish

Noun

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

Declension of skift
	Singular		Plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	skift	skiftet	skift	skiften
Genitive	skifts	skiftets	skifts	skiftens

See also

• skifta
• skifte

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)

1. order (taxonomy)

Further reading

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