Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell shift

What it means: To move or change position.

In a sentence: I had to shift my chair closer to the table. ▶

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as shif or schift.

Same family: shifts, shifted, shifting, reshift, shiftable. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Shift” comes from Old English “sciftan,” meaning to arrange, divide, or change, and it is related to older Germanic words about ordering or assigning things. Over time, its meaning expanded so we now use it for many kinds of changes, from shifting gears in a car to shifting opinions.

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Words like this

shock · shoot · sharp · brush · flash · shot · spaceship · ocean

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