Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) a trickster, a confidence man.

c.1561		Awdeley Fraternitye of Vacabondes in Viles & Furnivall (1907) 6: The company of Cousoners and Shifters.
1572		Treasons against Q. Elizabeth n.p.: [O]ne, that had a deepe witte, a smooth tongue, an aspiring mind, a shamelesse face, no honour, litle honestie, and lesse conscience, and was a slie and suttle shifter.
1586		G. Whetstone Mirrour for Magestrates of Citties (2nd edn) H2: These expert Shifters, by falce Dice, slipperie castynge, or some other nice Sleight: [...] wyll make their Purses as emptie of Money, as the Catte the Mouses headde of Braynes.
1592		H. Chettle Kind-Harts Dreame G2: This Shifter forsooth carried no lesse countenance than a Gentlemans abilitie, with his two men in bluecoates.
1603		H. Crosse Vertues Common-wealth n.p.: The very scum, rascallitie, and baggage of the people, theeues, cut-purses, shifters, cousoners.
1612		J. Brinsley Ludus Literarius IV 40: The great abuse by som shifters, who go vnder the name of Scriueners .
c.1616		Fletcher Bloody Brother IV ii: They have so little As well may free them from the name of shifters.
1621		R. Burton ‘Democritus to Reader’ Anatomy of Melancholy (1893) I 91: Shifters, cozeners, outlaws, profligatae famae ac vitae (*Men of bad reputation and life).
1637		J. Rhodes The countrie mans comfort n.p.: I am no cosening cogging knaue, / No shifter vile or base: / No drunkard whoremaister or theefe, / That dares not shew their face.
1648		W. Powell Nevves for nevvters 11: There goes an Hypocrite, Shifter, Turne-coat [...] a traytor to his Countrey.
1654		J. Mennes Recreation for ingenious head-peeces 264: 2 uk64. On Crambo a lowsie shifter.
1660		T.V. Hugh Peters's passing-bell rung 3: You have murdred your King in a vizard, you have broken all laws against God and Man: you have been a shifter, jugler, and a notorious dissembler.
1671		Milton Hist. of England 130: Bunglers at the Scripture [...] but in worldly matters, practis’d and cunning Shifters.
1922		Edwardsville Intelligencer (IL)14 Sept. 4/4: The Flappers’ Dict. [...] Shifter: A Grafter.
1922		Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 7 May 29/6: The ‘shifter’ [...] flaunts as his banner ‘Something for nothing and then very little’.

2. (UK Und.) a warning from one thief to another.

1812

Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 265: shifter an alarm, or intimation, given by a thief to his pall, signifying that there is a down, or that some one is approaching, and that he had, therefore, better desist from what he is about.

3. (US Und.) a receiver of stolen goods.

1927		H. Yenne ‘Prison Lingo’ in AS II:6 280: The two guys knows a ‘shifter’ (one that transfers stolen goods from the thief to the ‘fence,’ a place where stolen goods are sold).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 191/2: Shifter. (East and near South, except New York and New Jersey) A go-between from thief to buyer of stolen goods.