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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT
Imported dictionary evidence
These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.
35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset
PARTIAL ENGLISH COVERAGE · FULL CORPUS REMAINS LOCAL2 source sections across 2 headwords matching “Shift”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.
ShiftEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
From shift.
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗shiftEnglish (en) · Unnumbered etymologySource text
The verb is from Middle English schiften, from Old English sċiftan (“to divide, separate into shares; appoint, ordain; arrange, organise”), from Proto-West Germanic *skiftijan, from Proto-Germanic *skiftijaną, *skiptijaną, from earlier *skipatjaną (“to organise, put in order”), from Proto-Indo-European *skeyb- (“to separate, divide, part”), from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to cut, divide, separate, part”). Cognate with Scots schift, skift (“to shift”), West Frisian skifte, skiftsje (“to sort”), Dutch schiften (“to sort, screen, winnow, part”), Low German schichten (“to stack, layer”), German schichten (“to stack, layer”), Swedish skifta (“to shift, change, exchange, vary”), Norwegian skifte (“to shift”), Icelandic skipta (“to switch”). See ship. The noun is from Middle English schyft, shyffte. Cognate with Dutch schift (“split, fissure”), German Schicht (“layer, shift”).
Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY
More sources for this spelling
These are spelling matches, not a claim of identical senses or agreement. Historical accounts retain their own editions and limits; none is automatically promoted into reviewed ancestry.
Browse the independently attributed sources →010
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
No reviewed record in this collection contains “shift.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
020
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
No reviewed record in this collection contains “shift.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
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WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 5
openprobableposition text
Can one date the shift from enemy to fiend to one event?
No. The historical dictionary gives a relative post-Christian chronology, while ONP and the poetic corpus show overlapping ordinary and supernatural uses rather than one recoverable coinage moment.
openprobableposition text
Did the shift from persecution to feeling happen in one dated event?
No single event is established. DWB describes a contrast between hostile deeds and a more muted hostile disposition, while historical and modern examples show overlapping contextual ranges.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was candor originally frankness?
Not exclusively. Its earliest English family includes brightness and unstained purity; straightforward honesty becomes the dominant modern sense.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was the ordinary friend sense completely absent in Old Norse?
No. ONP explicitly structures a friend sense and a foster-brother or companion sense, even though historical dictionaries emphasize the dominance of kinsman.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Did the word first name modern historical linguistics?
No. CNRTL’s earliest source-reported use around 1550 concerns compound names said to reveal their true sense; the current analytical sense is broader.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 0
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BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “shift.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
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FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
No reviewed record in this collection contains “shift.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.
06
SEARCH IS DISCOVERY, NOT PROOF
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