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Skirt vs Shift - What's the difference?

skirt | shift |

As nouns the difference between skirt and shift

is that skirt is an article of clothing, usually worn by women and girls, that hangs from the waist and covers the lower part of the body while shift is (computing) a modifier key whose main function is shifting between two or more functions of any of certain other keys (usually by pressing shift and the other button simultaneously).

As a verb skirt

is to be on or form the border of.

skirt

English

(wikipedia skirt)

Noun

(en noun)
  • An article of clothing, usually worn by women and girls, that hangs from the waist and covers the lower part of the body.
  • * , The Purple Dress :
  • "I like purple best," said Maida. "And old Schlegel has promised to make it for $8. It's going to be lovely. I'm going to have a plaited skirt and a blouse coat trimmed with a band of galloon under a white cloth collar with two rows of—"
  • The part of a dress or robe that hangs below the waist.
  • * 1885 , , The Science of Dress in Theory and Practice , Chapter XI:
  • The petticoats and skirts ordinarily worn are decidedly the heaviest part of the dress ; hence it is necessary that some reform should be effected in these.
  • A loose edging to any part of a dress.
  • * Addison
  • A narrow lace, or a small skirt of ruffled linen, which runs along the upper part of the stays before, and crosses the breast, being a part of the tucker, is called the modesty piece.
  • A petticoat.
  • (pejorative, slang) A woman.
  • * 1931 , , Alleys of Peril :
  • "Mate," said the Cockney, after we'd finished about half the bottle, "it comes to me that we're a couple o' blightin' idjits to be workin' for a skirt ."
    "What d'ya mean?" I asked, taking a pull at the bottle.
    "Well, 'ere's us, two red-blooded 'e-men, takin' orders from a lousy little frail, 'andin' the swag h'over to 'er, and takin' wot she warnts to 'and us, w'en we could 'ave the 'ole lot. Take this job 'ere now--"
  • (UK, colloquial) Women collectively, in a sexual context.
  • (UK, colloquial) Sexual intercourse with a woman.
  • Border; edge; margin; extreme part of anything.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Here in the skirts of the forest.
  • The diaphragm, or midriff, in animals.
  • (Dunglison)

    Usage notes

    * (article of clothing) It was formerly common to speak of “skirts” (plural) rather than “a skirt”. In some cases this served to emphasize an array of skirts of underskirts, or of pleats and folds in a single skirt; in other cases it made little or no difference in meaning.

    Derived terms

    * fender skirt * hobble skirt * mermaid skirt * miniskirt * pencil skirt * prairie skirt * rah-rah skirt * skirt chaser * skirted * skirtless * unskirted

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To be on or form the border of.
  • The plain was skirted by rows of trees.
  • To move around or along the border of; to avoid the center of.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 1
  • An enormous man and woman (it was early-closing day) were stretched motionless, with their heads on pocket-handkerchiefs, side by side, within a few feet of the sea, while two or three gulls gracefully skirted the incoming waves, and settled near their boots.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) , title= Ideas coming down the track , passage=A “moving platform” scheme
  • To cover with a skirt; to surround.
  • * Milton
  • skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold

    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