SHOP BOUNCER, or SHOP LIFTER, a person generally respectably attired, who, while being served with a small article at a shop, steals one of more value. Shakespere has the word LIFTER, a thief.
SHOPPING, purchasing at shops. Termed by Todd a slang word, but used by Cowper and Byron.
SHORT, when spirit is drunk without any admixture of water, it is said to be taken “short;” “summat SHORT,” a dram. A similar phrase is used at the counters of banks; upon presenting a cheque, the clerk asks, “how will you take it?” i.e., in gold, or in notes? Should it be desired to receive it in as small a compass as possible, the answer is, “SHORT.”
SHORT COMMONS, short allowance of food.—See [COMMONS].
SHOT, from the modern sense of the word to SHOOT,—a guess, a random conjecture; “to make a bad SHOT,” to expose one’s ignorance by making a wrong guess, or random answer without knowing whether it is right or wrong.
SHOT, from the once English, but now provincial word, to SHOOT, to subscribe, contribute in fair proportion;—a share, the same as SCOT, both being from the Anglo Saxon word, SCEAT; “to pay one’s SHOT,” i.e., share of the reckoning, &c.
SHOT, “I wish I may be SHOT, if,” &c., a common form of mild swearing.
SHOVE-HALFPENNY, a gambling street game.
SHOWFULL, or SCHOFELL, a Hansom cab,—said to have been from the name of the inventor.—Led de hor qu.
SHOW-FULL, or SCHOFUL, bad money. Mayhew thinks this word is from the Danish, SKUFFE, to shove, to deceive, cheat; Saxon, SCUFAN,—whence the English, SHOVE. The term, however, is possibly one of the many street words from the Hebrew (through the low Jews); SHEPHEL, in that language, signifying a low or debased estate. Chaldee, SHAPHAL.—See Psalm cxxxvi. 23, “in our low estate.” A correspondent suggests another very probable derivation, from the German, SCHOFEL, trash, rubbish,—the German adjective, SCHOFELIG, being the nearest possible translation of our shabby.