shifting

Pluralshiftings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of shift.

   Public opinion is shifting toward cleaner energy.

   Shifting between two jobs left her exhausted by the end of the week.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. After be it is the progressive verb (opinion is shifting). As a gerund it heads a noun-like phrase (shifting the furniture took all day). Because shift works with or without an object, both the cargo is shifting and they are shifting the cargo are natural. In Indian English it can also mean moving house, so we are shifting next month announces a new address.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A change or alteration, especially a movement from one position or arrangement to another.

   The constant shifting of the sands erased the trail by morning.

   A subtle shifting in his tone told her that something was wrong.

   Similarmovement, change, drift, alteration

   Note

   In the plural, this noun names many small moves instead of one steady process. Charles Lamb mocks the "shiftings and reshiftings" of Macbeth's costume changes, and Jack Vance describes "slight shiftings of the hands and feet." The plural often comes paired with a near-partner, as in shiftings and readjustments, or softened by slight. It suits a room full of fidgeting, while the singular suits a gradual drift.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A syntactic process in which two or more constituents on the same side of their shared head exchange positions to produce a non-canonical order.

   Linguists noted the shifting that placed both objects after the adverb in that clause.

   In this pattern, shifting reorders the two complements that follow the verb.

   Note

   Syntacticians use this term with a narrow condition built in. The constituents that trade places must sit on the same side of the head they share, as two complements following a verb do. Their exchange yields a non-canonical order, an arrangement other than the language's default one. Outside linguistics the word keeps its everyday sense of movement. Here it names one specific kind of reordering.

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