Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Shiff \Shiff\, v. i.
   1. To divide; to distribute. [Obs.]

            Some this, some that, as that him liketh shift.
                                                  --Chaucer.

   2. To make a change or changes; to change position; to move;
      to veer; to substitute one thing for another; -- used in
      the various senses of the transitive verb.

            The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered
            pantaloon.                            --Shak.

            Here the Baillie shifted and fidgeted about in his
            seat.                                 --Sir W.
                                                  Scott.

   3. To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to
      contrive; to manage.

            Men in distress will look to themselves, and leave
            their companions to schift as well as they can.
                                                  --L'Estrange.

   4. To practice indirect or evasive methods.

            All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding
            witty, yet better teach all their followers to
            shift, than to resolve by their distinctions. --Sir
                                                  W. Raleigh.

   5. (Naut.) To slip to one side of a ship, so as to destroy
      the equilibrum; -- said of ballast or cargo; as, the cargo
      shifted.