make shift

present singular third person makes shift · participle present making shift · participle past made shift · past made shift

1. datedtransitiveTo contrive; to invent a way of surmounting a difficulty.

   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

   5 more examples

   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]

   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

   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

   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

   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

   Synonyms: make do, get along, get by

comparative more make shift · superlative most make shift

1. alternativeAlternative 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

plural make shifts

1. alternativeAlternative form of makeshift.

   1 more example

   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