Shifty
adj, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Subject to frequent changes in direction.
"Off he raced, shuffling his bare feet through the hot, dry, shifty sand."
- 2 Moving from one object to another; not looking directly and steadily at the person with whom one is speaking.
"1886, George Manville Fenn, This Man’s Wife, Chapter 3, in Littel’s Living Age, Volume 168, No. 2178, 20 March, 1886, p. 761, […] his quick, shifty eyes turned from the manager to the lethal weapons over the chimney, then to the safe, then to the bank, and Mr. Thickens’s back."
- 3 Having the appearance of being dishonest, criminal, or unreliable. idiomatic, informal
"He was a shifty character in a seedy bar, and I checked my wallet was still there after talking to him."
- 4 Resourceful; full of, or ready with, shifts or expedients.
"Shifty and thrifty as old Greek or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps nothing he could not endure."
- 1 changing position or direction wordnet
- 2 characterized by insincerity or deceit; evasive wordnet
Example
More examples"He's a shifty character and I don't trust him one bit."
Etymology
From shift + -y.
Related phrases
More for "shifty"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.