Shift vs Chance - What's the difference?

As verbs the difference between shift and chance

is that shift is to change, swap while chance is to happen by chance, to occur.

As nouns the difference between shift and chance

is that shift is a type of women's undergarment, a slip while chance is an opportunity or possibility.

As an adjective chance is

happening by chance, casual.

As a proper noun Chance is

a given name derived from English, an American pet form of Chauncey, in modern usage also associated with the word chance.

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

chance

English

Alternative forms

* chaunce (obsolete)

Noun

(en noun)

(countable) An opportunity or possibility.

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=Here was my chance . I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.}}

(uncountable) Random occurrence; luck.

(countable) The probability of something happening.

Derived terms

(Terms derived from the noun "chance") * Buckley's chance * by chance * chance'd be a fine thing * chance fracture * chance-medley * chancer * chances are * chancy * Chinaman's chance * dog's chance * even chance * fair chance * fat chance * fighting chance * first-chance exception * game of chance * half a chance * happy chance * in with a chance * jump at the chance * last chance * last chance saloon * main chance * mum chance * not a chance * off chance/off-chance * outside chance * perchance * slim chance * smart chance * snowball's chance * snowball's chance in hell * sporting chance * stand a chance

Verb

(chanc)

(archaic) To happen by chance, to occur.

It chanced that I found a solution the very next day.

* Bible, Deuteronomy xxii. 6

if a bird's nest chance to be before thee

* Shakespeare

I chanced on this letter.

* 1843 , (Thomas Carlyle), '', book 2, ch. XV, ''Practical — Devotional

Once it chanced that Geoffrey Riddell (Bishop of Ely), a Prelate rather troublesome to (w), made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certain edifices going on at (Glemsford).

* 1847 , , (Jane Eyre), Chapter XVIII

Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"—"quite troublesome."

(archaic) To befall; to happen to.

* 1826 , William Lambarde, A Perambulation of Kent

To try or risk.

Shall we carry the umbrella, or chance a rainstorm?

* W. D. Howells

Come what will, I will chance it.

To discover something by chance.

He chanced upon a kindly stranger who showed him the way.

Derived terms

* (l) * * (l)

Adjective

(en adjective)

(rare) Happening]] by [[#Noun, chance, casual.

* 1859 , (Charles Dickens), (A Tale of Two Cities)'', ch. VI, ''The Shoe Maker (Heron Book Centenial Edition)

No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there.

References

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Statistics

* 1000 English basic words ----