1854. Collins, Hide and Seek, II. 1. I can't shake up along with the rest of you. . . . I am used to hard lines and a wild country.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, 1. xi. The rest of the men had shaken well together.
1865. Maj. Downing, May-day in New York. New York is an everlastin' great concern, and . . . there's about as many people in it as you could shake a stick at.
18[?]. Thackeray, Mr. Malony's Account of the Ball. And I'd like to hear the pipers blow, And shake a fut with Fanny there.
1880. Scribner's Mag., Mar., 655. I've heard my father play it at Arrah, and shook a foot myself with the lads on the green.
1892. Fenn, New Mistress, i. "I'm very, very glad to know you, my dear," she said warmly, "and I hope you'll come and see me often as soon as you get shaken down."
1892. Anstev, Voces Populi, 'At the Military Exhibition, 72. Ain't you shot enough? Shake a leg, can't yer Jim?
Shake-bag, subs. phr. (venery).—The
female pudendum: see Monosyllable.
Cf. Shagbag, 2.
Shake-buckler, subs. phr. (old).—A
swash-buckler; a bully.
d.1570. Becon, Works, ii. 355. Such Sim Shake-bucklers as in their young years fall into serving, and in their old years fall into beggary.
Shake-down, subs. phr. (common).—1.
An improvised bed.
Also as verb. = (1) to sleep on
a temporary substitute for a bed.
d.1849. Miss Edgeworth, Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock, i. 3. I would not choose to put more on the floor than two beds and one shake-down.
1821. Egan, Real Life, 11. 164. Sure enough a shake-down is a two-penny layer of straw, and saving the tatters on my back, not a covering at all at all.
1838. Mrs. Hall, Irish Character, 137. A shake-down had been ordered even in Mr. Barry's own study.
1851-61. Mayhew, London Lab., 1. 272. In the better lodging-houses the shakedowns are small palliasses or mattresses; in the worst they are bundles of rags of any kind; but loose straw is used only in the country for shakedowns.
1858. Dickens, Great Expectations, xli. He . . . advised me to look out at once for a "fashionable crib" near Hyde Park, in which he could have a shake-down.
1860. Russell, Diary in India, 1. 40. Five or six of us shook down for the night and resigned ourselves to the musquitoes and to slumber.
1869. Mrs. Wood, Roland Yorke, xxxi. "Where are you going to sleep?" . . . "I dare say they can give me a shake-down at the mother's. The hearth-*rug will do."
1872. Sunday Times, 18 Aug., 'Fun and Riddle Club.' It was resolved: The members of this club do retire to their virtuous shakedowns to pass the rest of the night in the arms of Morpheus.
1883. Greenwood, Odd People, 51. Two or three of missus's younger children . . . have a shakedown on the pot-board beneath her, while father and mother share a mattress in the wash-house.
1886. D. Telegraph, 20 Mar. At night he had a shake-down in an adjacent outhouse.
1893. Emerson, Lippo, xi. The butler made a collection for us and gave us a shake down in the stables on some nice clean hay.
1897. Mitford, Romance of Cape Frontier, 1. v. He had shaken-down in Hick's room, and the two had talked . . . themselves to sleep.
1901. Troddles, 122. Why not run on and get a shakedown there. They'll do us decently and cheap if they are not already full.
2. (American thieves').—A brothel kept by a panel-thief (q.v.).
3. (American).—A rough dance; a break-down (q.v.).
Shake-lurk, subs. phr. (old Cant).—A
begging petition: specifically
one on account of shipwreck:
shake-glim = one for fire.
