shiftless

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   lacking ambition or initiative and habitually unwilling to work steadily

   The shiftless clerk abandoned every task as soon as it became difficult.

2. 2
   adj

   dated: lacking resourcefulness, practical judgment, or the ability to manage one's affairs

   Though he worked hard, the shiftless farmer never planned ahead or saved enough seed.

From shift + -less. Shift once meant a resource, expedient, or means of getting by, so shiftless originally described someone lacking practical resources or ingenuity. The word later acquired its now-common judgment of a person as idle, unambitious, or unreliable.

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