What is to practice indirect or evasive methods. All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions. Sir W. Raleigh called?

shift — To practice indirect or evasive methods. All those schoolmen, though they were exceeding witty, yet better teach all their followers to shift, than to resolve by their distinctions. Sir W. Raleigh. (Webster's 1913.)