What does "skift" mean?

Synonym of skiff (“light shower of rain or snow; light dusting of snow or ice (on ground, water, etc)”).

What is a synonym for "skift"?

Common synonyms include: skiff, skiff.

//skɪft// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Synonym of skiff (“light shower of rain or snow; light dusting of snow or ice (on ground, water, etc)”). Appalachia, Scotland, Shetland, dialectal, including
"Last night we had a little skift of snow."

Verb

1
Synonym of skiff (“fall lightly or briefly, and lightly cover the ground”). dialectal
"A mourning dove had returned to him through snow, skifting over cold earth. It settled on a limb and began dressing its plumage."
2
To shift; to move or remove. dialectal, obsolete, possibly
"Aw could like yo to skift, afore aw […]"

"Last night we had a little skift of snow."

From Scots skift (“light shower of rain or snow”), related to skiff (“light rain, snow, etc”) (which see for more) and skiffle.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.