Word.ws English Dictionary

makes shift

makes shift is the third-person singular simple present indicative of make shift.

Meaning of make shift

Verb

make shift (third-person singular simple present makes shift, present participle making shift, simple past and past participle made shift)

  1. (dated, transitive) To contrive; to invent a way of surmounting a difficulty.
    • Nerissa: How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?
      Portia: Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. And the worst fall...c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Questions about makes shift

What is makes shift the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Makes shift is the third-person singular simple present indicative of make shift.

Words near makes shift in the dictionary

  1. makes pretend
  2. makes quick work of
  3. makes right
  4. makes room
  5. makes sense
  6. makes shift
  7. makes shit of
  8. makes shit shake
  9. makes short work of
  10. makes some noise
  11. makes someone hard to catch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: makes shift (page history and authors); make shift (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “makes shift.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/makes_shift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.