Shard. To take a shard, verb. phr. (provincial).—To get tipsy: see Screwed.
Share, subs. (old).—The pubes.
[?]. Ms. Porkington, 10. Sychone se I nevere ere Stondynge opone schare.
1609. Holland, Ammianus Mareell. [Nares]. Arrayed from the heele to the share in manner of a nice and pretie page.
1624. Burroughs, Method of Physick [Nares]. They cannot make water, the share becometh hard, and hath vehement pain.
Share-penny, subs. phr. (old).—A
miser; a skinflint (q.v.)
1606. Wily Beguil'd [Hawkins, Eng. Drama, iii. 299]. I'll go near to cozen old father sharepenny of his daughter.
Sharge, verb. (provincial).—To
copulate: see Greens and Ride
(Halliwell).
Shark, subs. and verb. (old).—1.
A greedy adventurer; a swindler:
also sharker (B. E. and Grose).
As verb. (or to live on the
shark) = to live by roguery or
thieving. Whence shark-gull =
a flat-catcher (q.v.); to
shark up = to press, to enlist on
terms of piracy; sharking = (1)
roguery, and (2) greedy, tricky.
1590. Sir Thomas More [Oliphant, New Eng. ii. 8]. There are the new verbs rooke (plunder) and sharke (prey)].
1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, i. 1. Of unimproved mettle hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there, Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes For food and diet.
1599. Jonson, Ev. Man Out of His Humour. Characters . . . Shift. A threadbare shark . . . His profession is skeldring and odling. Ibid. (1609) Silent Woman, iv. 2. A very shark; he set me in the nick t'other night at Primero.
1606-8. Beaumont and Fletcler, Love's Cure. Dram. Pers. A sharking, panderly constable.
1608. Dekker, Belman of London [Grosart, Works, III. 162]. A crue of sharking companions (of which there be sundry consorts lurking about the suburbs of this City).
1609. Rowlands, Knave of Clubs (Hunterian Club's Repr., 1872), 10. Two hungry sharkes did trauell Paules, Vntill their guts cride out, And knew not how, with both their wits, To bring one meale about.
1611. Chapman, May-Day, ii. (1874) 288. Though y'are sure of this money again at my hands, yet take heed how this same Lodovico get it from you, he's a great sharker.
1628. Earle, Micro-cosmog. 14. A sharke is one whome all other means haue fayl'd, and hee now liues of himselfe. Ibid. [Bliss] 206 That does it fair and above-board, without legerdemain, and neither sharks for a cup or a reckoning.
d. 1639. Wotton, Letter to M. Velserus. "A dirty sharker about the Romish court, who only scribbles that he may dine."
1653. Middleton, Spanish Gipsy, II. 1. A trade brave as a courtier's; for some of them do but shark, and so do we.
1678-1715. South, Sermons, ii. 214. "Wretches who live upon the shark, and other men's sins, the common poisoners of youth."
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, iii. We returned to the village, my uncle muttering all the way against the old shark.
1760. Johnston, Chrysal, 1. iv. Making my fortune a prey to every sharking projector who flattered my vanity with promises of success.
1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, xxx. 'We want our goods, which we have been robbed of by these sharks,' said the fellow.
1857. Trollope, Three Clerks, iii. He expected to pay £200 a year for his board and lodging, which he thought might as well go to his niece as to some shark, who would probably starve him.
1891. Newman, Scamping Tricks, 2. Is part of the stock of such rare old sharks.
1898. Nisbet, Hagar, 8. 'You'd take my money to yourself,' interrupted Dix with irony. 'Not if I know it, you shark!'
