different between squad vs shift

English

Etymology 1

From French escouade, from Italian squadra (“square”) (whence also French escadre).

Alternative forms

• escouade (archaic)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?skw?d/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?skw?d/
• Rhymes: -?d

Noun

squad (plural squads)

1. A group of people organized for some common purpose, usually of about ten members.
   1. A unit of tactical military personnel, or of police officers, usually of about ten members.
      • 1912, in The New England magazine, volume 47:

        A squad of soldiers ordered them to disperse but instead of doing so they commenced throwing ice and rocks.

   2. (cricket, soccer, rugby) A group of potential players from whom a starting team and substitutes are chosen.
   3. (informal) A collective noun for a group of squid.
      • 1970, TV Guide:

        At one point, the 400-ton Calypso was brought to a standstill by a squad of squid which clogged the engines and caused a power failure. Other, highlights included an attack by predatory blue sharks, […]

      • 2002, Let's Go Inc., Let's Go 2003: Britain & Ireland, Let's Go Publications:

        The Sea Life Centre retains a squad of squid and such.

      • 2012, S. Louis King, Gnome Home Papers, AuthorHouse (?ISBN), page 546:

        There's several new symbols next to the doorway symbol. Beso pushed all six of them without waiting to see what they brought; like a herd of charging rhinos or rampaging squad of squid. Next best thing though.

      • 2017, Kristen Joy Wilks, Athens Ambuscade, Pelican Ventures Book Group (?ISBN)

        I pulled in as deep a breath as my gag allowed and began relaxing my body. I used a little trick I'd learned in college. I imagined that a friendly squad of squid were massaging every muscle on the bottoms of my feet; the tension began to drain.

2. (slang) One's friend group, taken collectively; one's peeps.

Derived terms

• firing squad
• flying squad
• God squad

Related terms

• squadron

Translations

See also

• Appendix:English collective nouns

Verb

squad (third-person singular simple present squads, present participle squadding, simple past and past participle squadded)

1. (intransitive) To act as part of, or on behalf of, a squad.

   We squad on the fifth of the month.

Etymology 2

Uncertain. Compare squick (“disgust”), squalid (“dirty”) with similar initial sounds.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?skwæd/

Noun

squad

1. (Britain, dialect) Sloppy mud. [from the mid-17th c.]
   • 1875 March 13, Leicester Chronicle, quoted in the EDD:

     The lass ran all among the muck and squad.

   • 1895, Alfred Tennyson, The Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson: Poet-laureate, page 791:

     An' she did n't not solidly mean I wur / gawin' that waäy to the bad,

     Fur the gell was as howry a trollope as / iver traäpes'd i' the squad.

Further reading

• Robert Eden George Cole, A Glossary of Words Used in South-west Lincolnshire (1886), page 140

Anagrams

• quads

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /es?kwad/, [es?kwað?]

Noun

squad m (plural squads or squad)

1. squad

English

Etymology

From Middle English schiften, from Old English s?iftan (“to divide, separate into shares; appoint, ordain; arrange, organise”), from Proto-Germanic *skiftijan?, *skiptijan?, from earlier *skipatjan? (“to organise, put in order”), from Proto-Indo-European *skeyb- (“to separate, divide, part”), from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to cut, divide, separate, part”). Cognate with Scots schift, skift (“to shift”), West Frisian skifte, skiftsje (“to sort”), Dutch schiften (“to sort, screen, winnow, part”), German schichten (“to stack, layer”), Swedish skifta (“to shift, change, exchange, vary”), Norwegian skifte (“to shift”), Icelandic skipta (“to switch”). See ship.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) enPR: sh?ft, IPA^(key): /??ft/
• (Canada)
• Rhymes: -?ft

Noun

shift (countable and uncountable, plural shifts)

1. (historical) A type of women's undergarment, a slip.

   Just last week she bought a new shift at the market.

   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 47

     Some wear black shifts and flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow, are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.

2. A change of workers, now specifically a set group of workers or period of working time.

   We'll work three shifts a day till the job's done.

3. An act of shifting; a slight movement or change.

   There was a shift in the political atmosphere.

   • c. 1620-1626, Henry Wotton, letter to Nicholas Pey

     My going to Oxford was not merely for shift of air.
4. (US) The gear mechanism in a motor vehicle.

   Does it come with a stick-shift?

5. Alternative spelling of Shift (“a modifier button of computer keyboards”).

   If you press shift-P, the preview display will change.

6. (computing) A bit shift.
7. (baseball) The infield shift.

   Teams often use the shift against this lefty.

8. (Ireland, crude slang, often with the definite article, usually uncountable) The act of kissing passionately.
9. (archaic) A contrivance, a device to try when other methods fail.
   • 1596, Shakespeare, History of King John

     If I get down, and do not break my limbs,

     I'll find a thousand shifts to get away:

     As good to die and go, as die and stay.

10. (archaic) A trick, an artifice.
    • 1593, Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

      And if the boy have not a woman's gift

      To rain a shower of commanded tears,

      An onion will do well for such a shift

    • Little souls on little shifts rely.

11. (construction) The extent, or arrangement, of the overlapping of plank, brick, stones, etc., that are placed in courses so as to break joints.
12. (mining) A breaking off and dislocation of a seam; a fault.
13. (genetics) A mutation in which the DNA or RNA from two different sources (such as viruses or bacteria) combine.
14. (music) In violin-playing, any position of the left hand except that nearest the nut.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive, sometimes figuratively) To move from one place to another; to redistribute.
2. (transitive, figuratively) To change in form or character; swap.
   • 2008, June Granatir Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism (page ix)

     As a result, I shifted my approach to focus on group-generated activities and broadened the chronological time frame.

3. (intransitive) To change position.

4. (intransitive, India) To change residence; to leave and live elsewhere.

   Synonym: move

5. (obsolete, transitive) To change (clothes, especially underwear).
   • , II.ii.2:

     'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired […].

6. (obsolete, transitive, reflexive) To change (someone's) clothes; sometimes specifically, to change underwear.
   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act V, Scene 5,^[3]

     As it were, to ride day and night; and […] not to have patience to shift me.

   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, I.21:

     The first thing he did was to secure a convenient lodging at the inn where he dined; then he shifted himself, and according to the direction he had received, went to the house of Mrs. Gauntlet […] .

7. (intransitive) To change gears (in a car).

8. (typewriters) To move the keys of a typewriter over in order to type capital letters and special characters.
9. (computer keyboards) To switch to a character entry mode for capital letters and special characters.
10. (transitive, computing) To manipulate a binary number by moving all of its digits left or right; compare rotate.

11. (transitive, computing) To remove the first value from an array.
12. (transitive) To dispose of.

13. (intransitive) To hurry; to move quickly.
14. (Ireland, vulgar, slang) To engage in sexual petting.
15. (archaic) To resort to expedients for accomplishing a purpose; to contrive; to manage.
    • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists with Morals and Reflexions, London: R. Sare et al., Fable 83, Reflexion, p. 81,^[4]

      […] men in distress will look to themselves in the First Place, and leave their Companions to Shift as well as they can.

    • 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, p. 112,^[5]

      My Fellow-Slaves were […] as courteous to me as I could well-expect; and as they had Plantations of their own, they gave me […] such Victuals as they had; especially on dark Nights, and at such Times as I could not shift for myself.

16. To practice indirect or evasive methods.
    • 1614, Walter Raleigh, History of the World, London: Walter Burre, Part 1, Chapter 3, Section 7, p. 45,^[6]

      But this I dare auow of all those Schoole-men, that though they were exceeding wittie, yet they better teach all their Followers to shift, then to resolue, by their distinctions.

17. (music) In violin-playing, to move the left hand from its original position next to the nut.

Synonyms

• (to change, swap): interchange, swap; See also Thesaurus:switch
• (to move from one place to another): relocate, transfer; See also Thesaurus:move
• (to change position): reposition
• (to dispose of): get rid of, remove; See also Thesaurus:junk
• (to hurry): hasten, rush; See also Thesaurus:rush
• (to engage in sexual petting): fondle, grope; see also Thesaurus:fondle

Antonyms

• (computing): unshift

Derived terms

• ever-shifting, evershifting
• preshift
• unshift

Translations

Portuguese

Noun

shift m (plural shifts)

1. shift (button on a keyboard)