Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Shifter

Shifter , noun

1.
One who, or that which, shifts; one who plays tricks or practices artifice; a cozener.
'T was such a shifter that, if truth were known, Death was half glad when he had got him down. — Milton
2.
(Nautical) An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, steeping, and shifting the salt provisions.
3.
(a) (Machinery) An arrangement for shifting a belt sidewise from one pulley to another.
(b)
(Machinery) A wire for changing a loop from one needle to another, as in narrowing, etc.
4.
(construction, tunneling) A foreman responsible for the work on one shift in one area, as in one heading{4}.