shifter

[ shif-ter ]

/ ˈʃɪf tər /

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noun

a person or thing that shifts.

Informal. shift lever.

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Origin of shifter

First recorded in 1545–55; shift + -er¹

Mad with hunger and armed with razor-sharp teeth and bodies that contorted like shape shifters capable of entering the smallest of spaces, the rats that hadn’t starved to death themselves were everywhere.
The Botanist Who Defied Stalin - Issue 99: Universality|Lee Alan Dugatkin|April 21, 2021|Nautilus
He says that if you had a hot rod in Detroit in 1963, you had to have a Hurst shifter or you were nowhere.
Elmore Leonard’s Rocky Road to Fame and Fortune|Mike Lupica|September 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Ever the shape-shifter and opportunist, he ended his career as a high official in the very empire he had once helped defeat.
‘300’ Is a Misleading, Muscle-Bound Travesty of Ancient History|James Romm|March 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Malaria is a shape-shifter, like HIV, always reshuffling the deck to make a new pathogen.
Mosquitoes Love Some People More and Science Wants to Know Why|Josh Dzieza|August 6, 2013|DAILY BEAST

Kenney, by contrast, was a shape-shifter who tried on different personalities and never quite found a fit.
Funny Pages: How the National Lampoon Made American Humor|Nathaniel Stein|July 1, 2013|DAILY BEAST
"Correa will have to gauge his decision very carefully," says Shifter.
Ecuador Needs U.S. Aid. Will They Risk It All with Snowden?|Mac Margolis|June 26, 2013|DAILY BEAST
The effect is as unpleasant as that which is produced on the stage by the voice of a prompter or the entrance of a scene-shifter.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII|John Lord
I must have the good-will of all, be obeyed by all, from prima donna to scene-shifter.
Great Italian and French Composers|George T. Ferris
To stop and start, the belts are shifted from the tight to the loose pulleys by a belt-shifter, f.
The Popular Science Monthly, October, 1900|Various
There was a hitch here somewhere; the scene-shifter was hardly up to his work, so that it was rather a failure.
Guy Livingstone;|George A. Lawrence
The note procured me an engagement as errand boy at the stage-door and later I rose to the dignity of scene-shifter.
The Strollers|Frederic S. Isham