1857-61. Mayhew, London Lab., i. 233. The patterer becomes a "lurker,"—that is, an impostor; his papers certify any and every ill that flesh is heir to. Shipwreck is called a shake lurk.
Shaker, subs. (common).—1. The
hand: see Daddle.
2. (common).—A shirt: see Fleshbag (Snowdon, Mag. Assist. (1857) 446).
3. (busmen's).—An omnibus.
Shakerag. See Shagbag.
Shakester. See Shickster.
Shake-up, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A
commotion; a disturbance.
Shaky, adj. (colloquial).—Anything
questionable: generic—unstable,
insolvent, unwell, dishonest,
immoral, drunken, ignorant.
Shakiness = hesitancy,
degeneracy.
1841. Thackeray, Gt. Hoggarty Diamond. Our director was—what is not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary—rather shaky.
1853. Lytton, My Novel, xi. xvii. I must be off presently to those three shaky voters in Fish Lane.
1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, x. Is it not a noble ambition to arrive at terms of apparent intimacy with this shaky grandee?
1858. N. Y. Tribune, 21 Jan. Four . . . adverse, and several others shaky.
1859. Eliot, Adam Bede, xxviii. I feel terribly shaky and dizzy.
1861. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, xviii. Affairs are getting somewhat shaky there: Welter's tradesmen can't get any money.
1890. Allen, Tents of Shem, x. I expect your chances would have been SHAKY.
1900. Savage, Brought to Bay, iv. A few women, faultless in attire, even if shaky in morals.
Shaler, subs. (common).—A girl.
Shalley-gonahey, subs. phr.
(provincial).—A smock-frock
(Hotten).
Shallow, subs. (old)—1. An
empty-headed Justice of the Peace.
[Cf. Shakspeare, 2 Hen. IV. iii.
2.] Whence (2) = a fool; also
SHALLOW-LING and SHALLOW-PATE
(B. E. and Grose.)
1615. Sylvester, Tobacco Battered [Century].—Can Wee suppose that any shallowling Can finde much good in oft-Tobaccoring.
1646. British Bellman [Harl. Misc., vii. 633. Whores, when they have drawn in silly shallowlings, will ever find some trick to retain them.
1902. Headon Hill, Caged, xxvi. The local shallows thought this mode of entrance added dignity.
3. (old).—A low-crowned hat; 'a whip-hat': whence LILLY-shallow = a white whip-hat (Grose and Vaux).
4. (costermongers').—(a) The peculiar barrow used by street traders (also Trolley and Whitechapel brougham: Fr. une bagnole); and (b) see quot. 1851.
1851-61. Mayhew, London Lab., i. 29. The square and oval shallows are willow baskets, about four inches deep, and thirty inches long, by eighteen broad. Ibid., i. 146. Two or three customers with their shallows slung over their back.
1875. Greenwood, Low Life Depths. Here they are after it—in vehicles for the greater part; in carts and half-carts, and shallows and barrows.
1876. Hindley, Cheap Jack, 184. With a proviso that he did not go travelling in the country with his shallow.
1891. M. Advertiser, 30 Mar. The connexion between Lord Lonsdale's travels . . . and his capacity to drive anything on wheels from a Pickford's van to a costermonger's shallow, is, one would fancy, remote enough.
1896. Sala, London Up-to-date, 45. The free and independent costermonger, with his pal in the shallow.
