Word.ws English Dictionary

shifted gears

shifted gears is the simple past and past participle of shift gears.

Meaning of shift gears

Verb

shift gears (third-person singular simple present shifts gears, present participle shifting gears, simple past and past participle shifted gears)

  1. To change the gear by which motion is transmitted from a powered shaft to another shaft, especially in a motor vehicle.
  2. (idiomatic) To change pace or mode of operation.

Questions about shifted gears

What is shifted gears the simple past and past participle of?
Shifted gears is the simple past and past participle of shift gears.

Words near shifted gears in the dictionary

  1. shiftable
  2. shiftage
  3. shiftas
  4. shifted
  5. shifted about
  6. shifted gears
  7. shifted geometric distribution
  8. shifted ground
  9. shifted in
  10. shifted off
  11. shifted one's ground

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shifted gears (page history and authors); shift gears (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: “shifted gears.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shifted_gears. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.