Shiff \Shiff\, v. i.

1. To divide; to distribute. [Obs.]

Some this, some that, as that him liketh shift. --Chaucer.

2. To make a change or changes; to change position; to move; to veer; to substitute one thing for another; -- used in the various senses of the transitive verb.

The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon. --Shak.

Here the Baillie shifted and fidgeted about in his seat. --Sir W. Scott.

3. To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to contrive; to manage.

Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave their companions to schift as well as they can. --L'Estrange.

4. To practice indirect or evasive methods.

All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions. --Sir W. Raleigh.

5. (Naut.) To slip to one side of a ship, so as to destroy the equilibrum; -- said of ballast or cargo; as, the cargo shifted.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)