Shifter

A simple electronic logic circuit (or device) known as a shifter would simply move input bits to either the right or left to produce an output. If the input at A contained 01011010₂ and the shifter moved the bits one place to the left, the output, B would be 10110100₂. Simple.

On the Pennsylvania Railroad, a shifter was the kind of locomotive that was elsewhere in the United States known as a switcher, or in England a shunter; a small, low-powered locomotive used for moving railroad cars around, arranging them in trains, breaking them up, sorting them in a yard.

Shift"er (?), n.

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. Naut.

An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, steeping, and shifting the salt provisions.

3. Mach. (a)

An arrangement for shifting a belt sidewise from one pulley to another.

A wire for changing a loop from one needle to another, as in narrowing, etc.

© Webster 1913.