shifter

CEFRB2

/ʃˈɪftər/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
noun
A person or device that changes something from one position or state to another.
02
noun
Extra detail
A word whose meaning changes depending on the situation, as by deixis.

Examples

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Deep Dive

Extra meanings

Someone who plays tricks; a trickster.
One who, or that which, shifts or changes.
An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, soaking, and shifting the salt provisions.

In context

He replaced the broken gear shifter in his sports car.
'Twas ſuch a ſhifter, that if truth were known, / Death was half glad when he had got him down;

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Question 1 · Quick check

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

The word in print, with each source given in full.

'Twas ſuch a ſhifter, that if truth were known, / Death was half glad when he had got him down;
1646 (indicated as 1645), John Milton, “On the Univerſity Carrier […] ”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], →OCLC, page 28
The cigarette is analogous to what linguists call a shifter, like the word I ; this device for expressing the irreducible particularity of my innermost self is universally available to every speaker and is thus the least particular thing in the world. The smoker manipulates the cigarette, like the word I, to tell stories to him/herself about him/herself — or to an other.
1995, Richard Klein, “Introduction”, in Cigarettes are sublime, Paperback edition, Durham: Duke University Press, published 1993, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 9

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