c1175 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 467 He wass i þatt shifftinng sett. Þatt nemmnedd wass abya [cf. Vulgate: de vice Abia].

1631 W. Gouge Gods Three Arrowes iii. §88. 349 Plagues oft arise..from noisome savours, from want of cleane shiftings, from unwholsome food.

1833 E. A. Poe in Southern Literary Messenger (1835) Dec. 35/2 I therefore thought proper to contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I did by removing a small portion of the shifting boards.

1846 A. Young Naut. Dict. Shifting-boards, one or more wooden partitions put up fore-and-aft in a vessel's hold..for the purpose of preventing the shifting of a cargo.

1885 F. Gordon Pyotshaw 51 Ma guid shiftin' claes clean spilt.

1957 Scotland's Mag. June 46 The first of the noisy band of workers came ‘skailing’ out of the pithead baths, in their shifting clothes.

1913 D. H. Lawrence Sons & Lovers viii. 199 She wiped him in a desultory fashion, and went upstairs, returning immediately with his shifting-trousers. When he was dried he struggled into his shirt.

1697 J. Vanbrugh Relapse iii. 59 And if it was not shifting-day, let her put on a clean Tucker quick.

1876 J. Hiles Catech. Organ (1878) viii. 56 A shifting-movement is an old contrivance for shutting off the loud stops [of an organ] by means of a pedal: it..is now superseded by the composition pedals.

1740 C. Cibber Apol. Life C. Cibber xi. 218 I haul'd him, by the Sleeve, into my Shifting-Room.

1479 in J. T. Smith & L. T. Smith Eng. Gilds (1870) 425 The shyftyng daies of the woke, specially the Wensdaies and Satirdaies, the Maire hath be vsid to walke in the morenynges to the Brewers howses.

1644 J. Milton Doctr. Divorce (ed. 2) To Parl. sig. A4^v Let him bethink him withall how he will soder up the shifting flaws of his ungirt permissions, his venial and unvenial dispences.

1735 W. Somervile Chace iv. 70 Nor less the shifting Cur avoid, that breaks Illusive from the Pack.

1791 E. Burke Let. to Member National Assembly in Wks. (1823) VI. 12 The shifting tides of fear and hope.

1814 W. Scott Diary 31 July in J. G. Lockhart Mem. Life Scott (1837) III. iv. 138 A whole parish was swallowed up by the shifting sands.

1859 T. P. Thompson Audi Alteram Partem II. App. 99 In a shifting gale the seaman will do many things, which are the last he would have done an hour before.

1871 E. A. Freeman Hist. Ess. 1st Ser. viii. 239 The shifting relations between France and Normandy during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

1581 A. Hall tr. Homer 10 Bks. Iliades i. 7 Among the Kings a coward vile, a slouthful shifting Oxe.

1587 W. Harrison Descr. Eng. ii. xi. 186/1 Yoong shifting gentlemen, which oftentimes doo beare more port than they are able to mainteine.

1659 J. Milton Treat. Civil Power 54 Opposing truth to error, no unequal match; truth the strong to error the weak though slie and shifting.

1737 Gentleman's Mag. Sept. 570/1 Nor winged flight, nor shifting wiles, Cou'd save 'em from his deadly toils.

1795 W. Windham Speeches Parl. 5 Jan. (1812) I. 261 What course of candour and fair reasoning is a match for this shifting subtlety?

1934 W. Fitzgerald Africa iii. v. 354 Cocoa-planting necessitated the abandonment of the old system of shifting agriculture.

1973 W. T. W. Morgan E. Afr. iv. 92 In the general absence of fertilisers and lacking any complete rotation system, a system of fallowing was necessary. In the tropics this system has come to be referred to as ‘shifting agriculture’.

1867 W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk. Shifting backstays,..those which can be changed from one side of a shift to the other, as the occasion demands.

1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue Shifting Ballast, a term used by sailors, to signify soldiers, passengers, or any landsmen on board.

1867 W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk. Shifting ballast, pigs of iron, bags of sand, &c., used for ballast, and capable of being moved to trim the vessel. Also, a term applied to messengers, soldiers, and live-stock.

1794 D. Steel Elements & Pract. Rigging & Seamanship II. 283 The metacenter..has been likewise called the shifting center.

1846 A. Young Naut. Dict. 211 Meta-centre, sometimes called the Shifting Centre.

1922 W. Schlich Man. Forestry (ed. 4) I. 274 Rules drawn up to control shifting cultivation (chena).

1952 P. W. Richards Trop. Rain Forest xvii. 378 The destruction of the primary forest which gives rise to secondary successions may take place in different ways and for various reasons. By far the most important cause of destruction up to the present has been the system of shifting cultivation (the ladang system of Malaysia and the taunggya system of Burma) which is practised by nearly all the native peoples of the tropics.

1971 J. H. Galloway in H. Blakemore & C. T. Smith Lat. Amer. viii. 382 Much of the agriculture of Mato Grosso and Goiás is still primitive, unproductive shifting cultivation.

1945 K. J. Pelzar Pioneer Settlement in Asiatic Tropics ii. 16 The shifting cultivator does not use the same piece of land every year; instead, he kills or cuts down at regular intervals—every year, every other year, or every third year—the trees of a small forest patch.

1979 Nature 16 Aug. 533/1 Shifting cultivators fell and burn forest land, then plant food crops and raise animals and later move on when soil fertility drops.

1896 A. J. Hipkins Descr. & Hist. Pianoforte 40 In many upright pianos, however, although some are made with shifting keyboards..a soft pedal is contrived by mechanically dropping a strip of cloth..between the hammers and the strings.

1922 A. H. Lindo Pedalling in Pianoforte Music ii. x. 143 The mechanism of the shifting keyboard, which is fitted to many Uprights and to nearly all Grands, is preferable.

1880 G. Grove Dict. Music II. 682/2 The shifting pedal, first introduced by Stein in his Saitenharmonica.

1883 G. Grove Dict. Music III. 637/1 The ‘Verschiebung’, or shifting pedal.

1962 K. Dale tr. Riefling Piano Pedalling 28 As regards the grand piano at any rate, it is correct to speak of the shifting pedal (Verschiebung) because the whole mechanism, keyboard and hammer, is shifted slightly to the right when the left pedal is pressed down.

1829 Mechanics' Mag. 31 Jan. 423/2 I send you..a plan of a new shifting-spanner, which answers better than the wedge-spanner.

1935 ‘J. Guthrie’ Little Country ii. 38 I'll let you have my shifting spanner.

1765 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. II. 335 This is sometimes called a secondary, sometimes a shifting, use.

1845 J. Williams Real Prop. Law ii. iii. 230 The establishment of shifting and contingent uses occasioned great difficulties to the early lawyers.

1813 Niles' Weekly Reg. Addenda 3 1/2 Boiling decomposes water slowly... Therefore the shifting-valve is necessary.

1580 T. Tusser Fiue Hundred Pointes Good Husbandrie (new ed.) f. 8 To hate to liue in infamie, through craft, & liuing shiftingly.

1613 E. Hoby Counter-snarle 14 Thus doth he..thinke shiftingly to hide that, which he dares not doctrinally defend.

1624 T. Gataker Discuss. Transubstant. 109 And this is..when they speake mystically or shiftingly, as hee speaketh.

1866 Spectator 8 Dec. 1353 The wonderful variety and shiftingness of the grounds taken by their advocates.