adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of shiftless
Explanation
If someone calls you shiftless, it's not a compliment — they're saying that you're lazy and unambitious! Someone who's shiftless avoids hard work at any cost, sometimes through procrastination. Do you hate getting sweaty or feeling tired at the end of a long day of labor? When volunteers are requested, do you slump in your seat instead of raising your hand? If so, you can call yourself shiftless. This adjective comes from a now-uncommon use of the noun shift as "resources." So if you don't have the get-up-and-go — or shift — to do a job, you're shiftless.
Vocabulary lists containing shiftless
Power Suffix: -less
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
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Life Is So Good
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Or the shiftless hack who hated his profession?
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 16, 2021
In that classic American tale by Washington Irving published in 1819, an amiable but shiftless farmer strolls out of his colonial village to go hunting in the Catskill Mountains.
From Salon ● Jan. 27, 2021
Colm Meaney plays a shiftless guy in late-80s Ireland who is reasonably happy on welfare but has a Damascene conversion to entrepreneurialism.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 16, 2020
Really, why not go all the way to shiftless?
From Washington Post ● Feb. 9, 2018
With him was a man who was known only as Z. Mr. Trepid thought of Z as a shiftless man, slipping in and out of town like a slithery possum.
From "Ruby Holler" by Sharon Creech
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.
