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functional shift

American

noun

a change in the grammatical function of a word, as in the use of the noun input as a verb or the noun fun as an adjective.

Etymology

Origin of functional shift

First recorded in 1940–45

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.