"skift" meaning in English

See skift in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /skɪft/ Forms: skifts [plural]
Rhymes: -ɪft Etymology: From Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”), related to skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”) (which see for more) and skiffle. Etymology templates: {{der|en|sco|skift||light shower of rain or snow}} Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”) Head templates: {{en-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)”) Tags: Appalachia, Scotland, Shetland, dialectal, including Categories (topical): Snow Synonyms: skiff [synonym, synonym-of]
    Sense id: en-skift-en-noun-DXjPviJL Disambiguation of Snow: 58 40 2 Categories (other): Appalachian English, Scottish English, Shetland English, English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 65 18 16

Verb

IPA: /skɪft/ Forms: skifts [present, singular, third-person], skifting [participle, present], skifted [participle, past], skifted [past]
Rhymes: -ɪft Etymology: From Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”), related to skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”) (which see for more) and skiffle. Etymology templates: {{der|en|sco|skift||light shower of rain or snow}} Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”) Head templates: {{en-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”) Tags: dialectal Synonyms: skiff [synonym, synonym-of]
    Sense id: en-skift-en-verb-qshkIaNE
  2. (dialectal, possibly obsolete) To shift; to move or remove. Tags: dialectal, obsolete, possibly
    Sense id: en-skift-en-verb-Cn8aIF4m

Inflected forms

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          "ref": "1857, “A Winter in the South”, in Harper's Magazine, page 726:",
          "text": "Well, there was a little skift of snow on the ground, and I follered up a ridge of the mountain […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1915, Ed Blair, History of Johnson County, Kansas, page 61:",
          "text": "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 ...",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1919, Peter McArthur, The Red Cow and Her Friends, Createspace Independent Pub, page 244:",
          "text": "A “Skift” of Snow\nLAST 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 ...",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1939, Coll, Hall:",
          "text": "We just got out on the top and there was a little skift of snow a-fallin'.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001, Cincinnati Magazine, page 80:",
          "text": "[...] 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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Mark Parman, A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting, page 84:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
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          "ref": "1911, Gene Stratton-Porter, The Harvester, page 46:",
          "text": "A mourning dove had returned to him through snow, skifting over cold earth. It settled on a limb and began dressing its plumage.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1921, Ernest Rhys, The Haunters & the Haunted: Ghost Stories and Tales of the Supernatural, page 153",
          "text": "[…] 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 ..."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Southern Poetry Review, volumes 37-38, page 20:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Carlene Cross, Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Elizabeth Mac Donald, A Matter of Interpretation, Fairlight Books, →ISBN:",
          "text": "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 ...",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "1867, Edwin Waugh, Owd Blanket, page 10:",
          "text": "Aw could like yo to skift, afore aw […]",
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        {
          "ref": "1875, William Dickinson, Cumbriana; Or, Fragments of Cumbrian Life, page 231:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1887, Thomas Clarke, Specimens of the Dialect of Westmorland, page 1:",
          "text": "[…] 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 — […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1900, Halliwell Sutcliffe, Shameless Wayne, page 103:",
          "text": "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' […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "To shift; to move or remove."
      ],
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        "(dialectal, possibly obsolete) To shift; to move or remove."
      ],
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        {
          "ref": "1834, record quoted in 1956, Norman E. Eliason, Tarheel Talk, page 294",
          "text": "Last night we had a little skift of snow."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1857, “A Winter in the South”, in Harper's Magazine, page 726:",
          "text": "Well, there was a little skift of snow on the ground, and I follered up a ridge of the mountain […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1915, Ed Blair, History of Johnson County, Kansas, page 61:",
          "text": "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 ...",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1919, Peter McArthur, The Red Cow and Her Friends, Createspace Independent Pub, page 244:",
          "text": "A “Skift” of Snow\nLAST 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 ...",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1939, Coll, Hall:",
          "text": "We just got out on the top and there was a little skift of snow a-fallin'.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2001, Cincinnati Magazine, page 80:",
          "text": "[...] 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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Mark Parman, A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting, page 84:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "Synonym of skiff (“light shower of rain or snow; light dusting of snow or ice (on ground, water, etc)”)"
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        "(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)”)"
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          "ref": "1911, Gene Stratton-Porter, The Harvester, page 46:",
          "text": "A mourning dove had returned to him through snow, skifting over cold earth. It settled on a limb and began dressing its plumage.",
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        },
        {
          "ref": "1921, Ernest Rhys, The Haunters & the Haunted: Ghost Stories and Tales of the Supernatural, page 153",
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        },
        {
          "ref": "1997, Southern Poetry Review, volumes 37-38, page 20:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Carlene Cross, Fleeing Fundamentalism: A Minister's Wife Examines Faith:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Elizabeth Mac Donald, A Matter of Interpretation, Fairlight Books, →ISBN:",
          "text": "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 ...",
          "type": "quote"
        }
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        "(dialectal, of rain or snow) Synonym of skiff (“fall lightly or briefly, and lightly cover the ground”)"
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        {
          "ref": "1867, Edwin Waugh, Owd Blanket, page 10:",
          "text": "Aw could like yo to skift, afore aw […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1875, William Dickinson, Cumbriana; Or, Fragments of Cumbrian Life, page 231:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1887, Thomas Clarke, Specimens of the Dialect of Westmorland, page 1:",
          "text": "[…] 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 — […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1900, Halliwell Sutcliffe, Shameless Wayne, page 103:",
          "text": "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' […]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To shift; to move or remove."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "shift",
          "shift"
        ],
        [
          "remove",
          "remove"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dialectal, possibly obsolete) To shift; to move or remove."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dialectal",
        "obsolete",
        "possibly"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/skɪft/"
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-ɪft"
    }
  ],
  "word": "skift"
}

Download raw JSONL data for skift meaning in English (8.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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