Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
make shift en · ADJ
Pronunciation
Meanings
-
(alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of makeshift.
Bill saw the road as an advantage for him, but he still didn't like the fact that he was seeing more and more make shift camps preparing to build permanent homes for the settling, unwanted new comers.
2010, William Campbell, More Short Stories by Boothill Will, page 182:
Forms
make shift en · NOUN
Pronunciation
Meanings
-
(alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of makeshift.
In a room not more than twelve feet square, were four miserable beds: the make shift, as mine host of the tape shop called it, was a singular contrivance; it was a long deal table, with a broomstick tied to each corner, rising about a foot from the surface of the table, with a cord communicating from the point of each, to form a kind of barrier for the bed, which was placed within them.
1818 March 3, "Philo Britannicus", "Sketches from Real Life", The White Dwarf, Number 17, page 270
Forms
make shift en · VERB
Pronunciation
Meanings
-
(dated, transitive) To contrive; to invent a way of surmounting a difficulty.
I was unable to handle a brig (which the Hispaniola should have been), but I thought I could make shift to sail her as a schooner without public shame.
1905, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Art of Writing:We could find no matches, and so we tried to make shift with the pistols.
1870–1871 (date written), Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXII, in Roughing It, Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company [et al.], published 1872, →OCLC, page 232:Ecod, I thank your worship, I'll make a shift to stay my stomach with a slice of cold beef in the pantry.
1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer: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 that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.
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] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:The military historian must often make shift to write of battles with slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.
1922, John Buchan, Huntingtower, chapter 14:The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men.
1854, Henry David Thoreau, chapter 1, in Walden:
Forms
Deriveds
makeshift
Synonyms
make do · get by · get along
Translations (11)
fi pärjätä (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · ru довольствоваться (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · fi selvitä (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · it improvvisare (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · de behelfen (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · it ingegnarsi (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · fr se débrouiller (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · ru ухитря́ться (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · ru обходи́ться (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · ru перебива́ться (contrive, find a way through difficulty) · fi onnistua (contrive, find a way through difficulty)