Literary notes about SHIFTY (AI summary)
In literature, the term "shifty" is frequently employed to convey a sense of evasiveness, duplicity, or unpredictability. It is often used to describe characters whose glances, expressions, or actions betray a hidden, untrustworthy nature—as seen when a character’s eyes are depicted as "shifty and light-gray" [1] or when a politician is labeled as "shifty" for his secretive maneuvers [2]. The word also extends to environmental descriptions, evoking the notion of changeability in weather or surroundings, as illustrated by references to "shifty winds" [3, 4]. Overall, "shifty" enriches the narrative by suggesting that what meets the eye is rarely what it seems.
- It was an odious face—crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, light-gray eyes and white lashes.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - "Do you know what new plot that shifty politician and her Grace of Kendal are hatching?" inquired Lavendale.
— from Mohawks: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3 by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon - So you've forgotten Mali'o, Turned to the flower of Puna-- Puna, the cave of shifty winds.
— from Unwritten Literature of HawaiiThe Sacred Songs of the Hula by Nathaniel Bright Emerson - But the sailor’s first ideas proved to be right, and not only did the wind veer round, but it increased in force and became so contrary and shifty
— from The Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise by George Manville Fenn
