What is shift?

Famous quotes containing the word shift:

“I will use the world and sift it,
To a thousand humors shift it,
As you spin a cherry.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

“They shift coffee-houses and chocolate-houses from hour to hour, to get over the insupportable labour of doing nothing.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)

“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage- coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place.”
—Washington Irving (1783–1859)