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Convert vs Shift - What's the difference?

convert | shift |

In transitive terms the difference between convert and shift

is that convert is to express (a unit of measure) in terms of another; to furnish a mathematical formula by which a quantity, expressed in the former unit, may be given in the latter while shift is to dispose of.

In intransitive terms the difference between convert and shift

is that convert is to become converted while shift is to hurry.

convert

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A person who has converted to his or her religion.
  • They were all converts to Islam.
  • A person who is now in favour of something that he or she previously opposed or disliked.
  • I never really liked broccoli before, but now that I've tasted it the way you cook it, I'm a convert !

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (lb) To transform or change (something) into another form, substance, state, or product.
  • :
  • *(Thomas Burnet) (1635?-1715)
  • *:if the whole atmosphere were converted into water
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:That still lessens / The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author= Katie L. Burke
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= In the News , passage=Oxygen levels on Earth skyrocketed 2.4 billion years ago, when cyanobacteria evolved photosynthesis: the ability to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and waste oxygen using solar energy.}}
  • (lb) To change (something) from one use, function, or purpose to another.
  • :
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • (lb) To induce (someone) to adopt a particular religion, faith, ideology or belief.
  • :
  • * (1796-1859)
  • *:No attempt was made to convert the Moslems.
  • (lb) To exchange for something of equal value.
  • :
  • (lb) To express (a quantity) in alternative units.
  • (lb) To express (a unit of measure) in terms of another; to furnish a mathematical formula by which a quantity, expressed in the former unit, may be given in the latter.
  • :
  • To appropriate wrongfully or unlawfully; to commit the common law tort of conversion.
  • To score extra points after (a try) by completing a conversion.
  • *{{quote-news, year=2011, date=February 4, author=Gareth Roberts, work=BBC
  • , title= Wales 19-26 England , passage=Flood converted to leave Wales with a 23-9 deficit going into the final quarter.}}
  • (lb) To score (a penalty).
  • *{{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 28, author=Jon Smith, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Valencia 1-1 Chelsea , passage=But, after the error by Lampard's replacement Kalou, Roberto Soldado converted the penalty.}}
  • To score a spare.
  • (lb) To undergo a conversion of religion, faith or belief.
  • :
  • (lb) To become converted.
  • :
  • To cause to turn; to turn.
  • *(Ben Jonson) (1572-1637)
  • *:O, which way shall I first convert myself?
  • To change (one proposition) into another, so that what was the subject of the first becomes the predicate of the second.
  • To turn into another language; to translate.
  • *(Ben Jonson) (1572-1637)
  • *:which storyCatullus more elegantly converted
  • Antonyms

    * deconvert

    Derived terms

    * converter * convertible * downconvert, downconversion, downconverter * upconvert, upconversion, upconverter

    shift

    English

    (wikipedia shift)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To change, swap.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter
  • , volume=100, issue=2, page=87, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= The British Longitude Act Reconsidered , passage=But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.}}
  • To move from one place to another; to redistribute.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= T time , passage=The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.}}
  • To change position.
  • (obsolete) To change (one's clothes); also to change (someone's) underclothes.
  • *, II.ii.2:
  • 'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired […].
  • * Shakespeare
  • As it were to ride day and night; andnot to have patience to shift me.
  • To change gears (in a car).
  • (typewriters) To move the keys of a typewriter over in order to type capital letters and special characters.
  • (computer keyboards) To switch to a character entry mode for capital letters and special characters.
  • (computing) To manipulate a binary number by moving all of its digits left or right; compare rotate.
  • (computing) To remove the first value from an array.
  • To dispose of.
  • To hurry.
  • (Ireland, vulgar, slang) To engage in sexual petting.
  • To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to contrive; to manage.
  • * L'Estrange
  • Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave their companions to shift as well as they can.
  • To practice indirect or evasive methods.
  • * Sir Walter Raleigh
  • All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift , than to resolve by their distinctions.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (historical) a type of women's undergarment, a slip
  • Just last week she bought a new shift at the market.
  • *
  • No; without a gown, in a shift that was somewhat of the coarsest, and none of the cleanest, bedewed likewise with some odoriferous effluvia, the produce of the day's labour, with a pitchfork in her hand, Molly Seagrim approached.
  • * '>citation
  • * 1919 ,
  • Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.
  • a change of workers, now specifically a set group of workers or period of working time
  • We'll work three shifts a day till the job's done.
  • an act of shifting; a slight movement or change
  • * Sir H. Wotton
  • My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air.
    There was a shift in the political atmosphere.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=November 7, author=Matt Bai, title=Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds, work=New York Times citation
  • , passage=The generational shift Mr. Obama once embodied is, in fact, well under way, but it will not change Washington as quickly — or as harmoniously — as a lot of voters once hoped.}}
  • (US) the gear mechanism in a motor vehicle
  • Does it come with a stick-shift ?
  • If you press shift -P, the preview display will change.
  • (computing) a bit shift
  • (baseball) The infield shift.
  • Teams often use the shift against this lefty.
  • The act of sexual petting.
  • (archaic) A contrivance, device to try when other methods fail
  • * 1596 , Shakespeare, History of King John
  • If I get down, and do not break my limbs,
    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:
    As good to die and go, as die and stay.
  • (archaic) a trick, an artifice
  • * 1593 , Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
  • And if the boy have not a woman's gift
    To rain a shower of commanded tears,
    An onion will do well for such a shift
  • * Macaulay
  • Reduced to pitiable shifts .
  • * Shakespeare
  • I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.
  • * Dryden
  • Little souls on little shifts rely.
  • In building, the extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
  • (mining) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
  • Derived terms

    * blueshift * day shift * graveyard shift * make shift * night shift * preshift * shift break * shiftwork, shift work * split shift * swing shift * stickshift * redshift * (French kissing) get the shift