shale, to shamble with the feet; ‘Esgrailler, to shale or straddle with the legs’, Cotgrave. In prov. use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Shale, vb.2). See [shayle].
shalla, for shall he; ‘Shalla go In deede? and shalla flowte me thus?,’ Phaer, Aeneid iv, 590, 591. A for he is common in prov. use when unemphatic, see EDD. (s.v. He, 1 (1)).
sham, to take in, to hoax; ‘You shammed me all night long . . . Freeman. Shamming is telling you an insipid, dull lye, with a dull face, which the sly wag the author only laughs at himself; and, making himself believe ’tis a good jest, puts the sham only upon himself, Wycherley, Plain Dealer, iii. Cp. Sc. sham, to cheat, trick, deceive, see EDD. (s.v. Sham, vb.1 1).
shamois, shoes made of the wild goat’s skin. Webster, White Devil (Flamineo), ed. Dyce, p. 19.
shape, the costume suited to a particular part in a play. Massinger, Bondman, v. 3 (Pisander).
shard, a fragment, a piece of broken pottery, a potsherd; ‘Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her’, Hamlet, v. 1. 254. In prov. use in the sense of a broken piece in Scotland and in the various parts of England (EDD.). ME. scherde, ‘testula’ (Prompt. EETS.), OE. sceard, ‘testa’ (B. T.).
shard, a patch of cow-dung; ‘They are his shards, and he their beetle’, Ant. and Cl. iii. 2. 19; ‘Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things As only buz to heaven with ev’ning wings’, Dryden, Hind and P. i. 321; ‘The shard-borne beetle’ (the beetle born in dung), Macbeth, iii. 2. 42. ‘Shard,’ meaning a patch of cow-dung, is in prov. use in Yorks. and Wilts. (EDD.). Probably related to ‘sharn’ in prov. use for dung of cattle; OE. scearn (Leechdoms); see EDD.
shard. In Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 38, ‘When late he far’d In Phaedrias flitt barke over that perlous shard.’ Spenser appears to use ‘shard’ here in the sense of ‘a channel’. It is probably the same word as ‘shard’ in prov. use for an incision, a gap, a narrow passage, see EDD. (s.v. Shard, sb.2 1, 2, 3). OE. sceard, a gap, notch; the word is used for bays and creeks in Boethius, 18. 1.
shark, to prowl about to pick up a living. Beaumont and Fl., Honest Man’s Fortune, iii. 3 (Mallicorn); Earle, Micro-Cosmographie, no. 77 (ed. Arber, 35); shark on, to prey upon, Sir Thos. More, ii. 4. 106; shark up, to pick up by prowling about, Hamlet, i. 1. 98. Hence shark-gull, a cheat who preys upon simpletons, Middleton, The Black Book (ed. Dyce, v. 524).
sharp. To fight at sharp, to fight with sharp weapons, not with foils, Beaumont and Fl., Nice Valour, v. 3 (Galoshio).