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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

shifter.

One who, or that which, shifts or changes.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun
  1. One who, or that which, shifts or changes.

  2. A word whose meaning changes depending on the situation, as by deixis.

  3. Someone who plays tricks; a trickster.

    dated
  4. An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, soaking, and shifting the salt provisions.

  5. A control device (usually a lever or button) for shifting gears in a gearbox, or an arrangement for shifting a belt sidewise from one pulley to another.

  6. A wire for changing a loop from one needle to another, as in narrowing, etc.

  7. A component used by the rider to control the gearing mechanisms and select the desired gear ratio, usually connected to the derailleur by a mechanical actuation cable.

  8. A spanner with an adjustable jaw size.

    Australia · especially
  9. A person employed to repair the horseways and other passages, and keep them unobstructed.

    historical
  10. A switcher or shunter: a railroad locomotive used for shunting.

    Pennsylvania · US
  11. A shape-shifter; a person or other being capable of changing their physical form, especially a lycanthrope.

  12. A shiftworker.

  13. Ellipsis of reality shifter.

    abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis
Where this word comes from

From shift + -er.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.