The Pillars of the Earth vocabulary

She’s wearing a white cotton shift, which is hiked up over her thighs;

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William's whore adjusted the screen for privacy, then pulled down the top of her shift, exposing her breasts.

Ken Follett. The Pillars of the Earth, p.449 (1990)

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Cinna comes to me before dawn, gives me a simple shift to wear, and guides me to the roof.

Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games, p.143 (2009)

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[...] I saw distaffs lying here and there; whereupon I asked my guide what use they served. "To spin," he answered me; "when the good Enoch would relax his mind from meditation, he applies himself sometimes to dressing this Lady-distaff, sometimes to weaving the cloth from which they make Shifts for the eleven thousand Virgins.

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"[...] I’m asking myself,” he said, conversationally, “just why a whore abroad in her shift would be wearing her shoes? And quite fine ones, at that,” he added,

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Shift stuck between the cheeks behind.

James Joyce. Ulysses

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No; without a gown, in a shift that was somewhat of the coarsest, and none of the cleanest, bedewed likewise with some odoriferous effluvia, the produce of the day's labour, with a pitchfork in her hand, Molly Seagrim approached.

Henry Fielding. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)