Common Sewer, subs. phr. (common).—(1) An indiscriminate tippler; (2) the throat; and (3) see quot.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], 90. You may truly be termed a common sewer of erudition.
Sex, subs. (venery).—1. The female
pudendum: generic. See Monosyllable.
2. The sex = womankind.
Sey (Se or Say) (back slang).—Yes:
pronounced See.
Shab, verb. (old colloquial).—1.
TO GET (or MAKE) SHABBY, which
= (1) 'in sorry rigging' (B. E.
and Grose), out-at-elbows; and
(2) mean, base, seedy (q.v.).
Whence shabbaroon (shabROON,
SHABRAG, or SHABSTER)
= a ragamuffin, 'a mean spirited
fellow' (B. E. and Grose). Also
shabby-genteel = aping gentility,
but really shabby; TO shab
off = 'to sneak or slide away'
(B. E.).
1680. Aubrey, Lives, 'Lettes' [Oliphant, New Engl., ii. 121.] Among new words are Sketch . . . Shabby (from scabby.)
1688. Clarendon, Diary, 7 Dec. They were very shabby fellows, pitifully mounted, and worse armed.
1691-2. Wood, Athenæ Oxon., 11. 743. They mostly had short hair, and went in a shabbed condition.
1698. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, iv. 3. I would have shabbed him off.
1703. Ward, London Spy, xv. 365. Some loose shabroon in Bawdy-Houses Bred.
d. 1704. T. Brown, Works, ii. 184. My wife, too, . . . let in an inundation of SHABROONS to gratify her concupiscence.
1729. Swift, Hamilton's Baron. The dean was so shabby, and look'd like a ninny.
1816. Scott, Antiquary, xv. He's a shabby body.
1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, ii. 6. We haven't had a better job a long vile nor the shabby genteel lay.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, 'Lay of St. Nicholas.' And how in the Abbey No one was so shabby, As not to say yearly four masses a head.
1840. Thackeray, Shabby Genteel Story [Title].
1862. Thackeray, Philip, xxii. Her mother felt more and more ashamed of the shabby fly . . . and the shabby cavalier.
1894. W. M. Baker, New Timothy, 153. Keeping up a fragmentary conversation with the shabby gentleman.
2. (old).—To scratch oneself: like a lousy man or mangy dog.
Shabby-woman (The), subs. phr.
(literary).—See quot.
1864. Athenæum, 29 Oct., 'Rev. of Slang Dict.' There is the shabby woman, a term pointing to the statue of Minerva which guards the portal of the Athenæum, and looks so little like 'Eve on hospitable thoughts intent,'—for since the Athenæum Club was established, no member has ever afforded the simplest rites of hospitality to a friend.
Shack, subs. (old).—1. A shiftless
fellow; a vagabond: also
SHACKABACK, SHACKBAG,
SHACKRAG, a SHAKERAG. As
verb. = to go on tramp; to idle,
to loaf. As adj. (also shack-*nasty)
= contemptible: cf. shag-*bag.
1740. North, Examen, 293. Great ladies are more apt to take sides with talking, flattering gossips than such a shack as Fitzharris.
18. . . Widow Bedott Papers, 34. Her father was a poor drunken shack, and her mother took in washin'.
1856. Dow, Sermons, 111. General fly-offs and moral unhitches incident to poor shackly mortality.
1865. Good Words, Feby., 125. What makes the work come so heavy at the end of the week, is, that the men are shacking at the beginning.
1882. W. Andrews, Book of Oddities, 84. 'Ripley ruffians, Butterley blacks, Swanwick bull-dogs, Alfreton SHACKS.'. . . For generations past Alfreton always had, down to twenty years ago, a notorious set
