Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having, displaying, or suggestive of deceitful character; evasive or untrustworthy.
- adj. Distinguished by frequent changes in direction: shifty winds.
- adj. Able to accomplish what is needed; resourceful.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Changeable; changeful; shifting; fickle; wavering: as, shifty principles.
- Full of shifts; fertile in expedients; well able to shift for one's self.
- Given to or characterized by shifts, tricks, or artifices; fertile in dodges or evasions; tricky.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having the appearance of someone dishonest, criminal or unreliable; such as someone with shifty eyes.
- adj. Subject to frequent changes in direction.
- adj. Full of, or ready with, shifts or expedients.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Full of, or ready with, shifts; fertile in expedients or contrivance.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. changing position or direction
- adj. characterized by insincerity or deceit; evasive.
Examples
“This makes explicit what was part of the subtext of my essay: Even Microsoft doesn't do this kind of shifty crap anymore, if they can help it.”
“And he looked kind of shifty when I turned up with my Other Half, Andy, in tow.”
“The GOP is now proving that despite their former warnings of doom (when THAT suited their purposes), they now embrace this "shifty" legal strategy as an effective way of illegitimately preventing a Senator from the opposing party from taking office at all.”
Minnesota Supremes Reject Coleman Lawsuit, Clearing Way For Franken Win Later Today
“Sort of like the scene early in the movie where everyone's young and idealistic and swears they'll never abandon their liberal principles, then one of them gets kind of shifty-eyed . . .”
“Lets face it being a dealer is a kind of shifty profession.”
“It's sort of like arguing that forming the Coalition to begin with was undemocratic: it wasn't; it was just kind of shifty, like the proroguing, arguably depending who you're cheering for was.”
“To all thoseRay 'shifty' saying: "Let the consumer decide”
“Nevertheless, Cameron's performance evoked from The Telegraph the headline, "Cameron attacks 'shifty' Brown over EU treaty", with an equally robust headline from The Daily Express.”
“Becket, though many a time exciting the displeasure of both contestants, and often since denounced as "shifty", was the strategy of an able commander who, by marches and countermarches succeeds in keeping the field against overwhelming odds.”
“The first thing I knows he comes over to me, his jaw set firmer'n I ever see it shut before, and a kind of shifty look in his eyes.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shifty’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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Y
What a -Y does to an otherwise common, dull word
zany, waxy, wavy, arty, chewy, bony, boxy, cozy, nosy, foxy, wiry, junky and 321 more...
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What's That Pokémon Name?
Words used to create the names of Pokémon, which are usually portmanteaux.
bulb, dinosaur, ivy, venus, char, salamander, squirt, turtle, blast, tortoise, water, caterpillar and 525 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Words that delight me
tepid, perfunctory, trope, benign, inordinate, bewildering, ersatz, boon, delectable, apt, scuttlebutt, sequester and 398 more...
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madmelanie's Words
monkey, folderol, snark, snarky, flibbertigibbet, faith, asshat, pirouette, avuncular, exegesis, memento mori, verisimilitude and 379 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Favorite Words
i love words.
ricochet, clavicle, etymology, equivocate, decoupage, dillydally, effervescent, flimflam, haberdashery, hullabaloo, debacle, juxtapose and 210 more...
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Lovely
whimsy, fisticuffs, shifty, widdiful, wretch, owlish, mincing, arch, lissome, parallax, octothorpe, owlishly
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Oxen's list
n/t
antic, irate, indignant, incredulous, frolic, shenanigan, ruse, ludicrous, jig, wily, shifty, disingenuous and 5 more...
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arabella's Words
Tweets
Looking for tweets for shifty.
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