She-flunkey, subs. phr. (common).—A lady's maid.
1877. Five Years' Penal Servitude, iii. 244. She were a she-flunkey, lady's maid, once—that's how she know'd all about being a swell lady.
Shekel, subs. (common).—In pl.
= money: generic: see Rhino.
1886. Fun, 21 July, 29. Now that Henry Ward Beecher is over here, intent on making shekels, the following anecdote concerning him is worth reviving.
1886-96. Marshall, Pomes [1897], 17. He'd a pedigree long, land and shekels galore.
1889. Referee, 6 Jan. H. is scooping in the shekels, but you mustn't infer from this that he is a "She"-nie.
1890. New York Herald, 16 April, 6. Mr. Philips's . . . novels bring him in as many shekels as Ouida's.
1892. Gunter, Miss Dividends, x. Plently of shekels to hire legal talent and pack juries.
1897. Cassell's Saturday Journal, 15 Sep. I do a great deal in the matrimonial line. One individual, more full of love than shekels, was in here just as the clock was striking nine one Saturday.
Shelf. On the shelf, phr.
(various).—1. (general) = laid
aside, in reserve, past service: Fr.
brûlé; 2 (military) = under arrest;
3 (old) = in pawn (Grose);
4 (thieves') = transported; 5
(common) = dead: whence off
the shelf = resurrected.
1587. Gascoigne, Fruits of War, 132 [Chalmers, Eng. Poets, ii. 522, 2, 4]. And I that neuer yet was set on shelf, When any sayld . . . Went after him.
1655. Heywood, Fortune by Land and Sea. The fates have cast us on the shelf To hang 'twix air and water.
1821. Egan, Life in London, ii. ii. Once a distinguished leader of fashion, . . . but he is on the shelf now.
1833. O'Connell [O'C. Correspondence (1888), i. 387]. Lord Anglesey now is obliged reluctantly to retire. Blackburne will be put on the shelf.
1842. Comic Almanack, 324. For though "six, seven, eight," have got, each of them, nicks, They, at last, lay the gambler undone on the shelf.
1857. Trollope, Three Clerks, iv. What, pension him! put him on half-pay—shelf him for life, while he was still anxiously expecting . . . promotion.
c.1870. Music Hall Song, 'Hands Off.' Some fine day, when I'm . . . Put to bed with a spade in the usual way, And yourself on the shelf a neglected old maid.
1894. Illus. Bits, 7 April, 4, 2. It should be explained here that [it] had been on the shelf some time.
1902. Hume, Crime of Crystal, i. Tell 'em to get back into their graves at once . . . we don't take any folks off the shelf.
Shell, subs. (military).—An undress
jacket: also shell-jacket.
1886. St. James's Gazette, 22 Dec. Tunics and shells and messing-jackets and caps.
1889. Harper's Mag., lxxx. 396. Three turbaned soldiers in tight shell-jackets and baggy breeches.
2. (school).—See quots.
1857. T. Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays, i. 5. The lower fifth, shell, and all the junior forms in order.
1867. Collins, Public Schools, 178 (Westminster). At the end of this room [the schoolroom] there is a kind of semi-circular apse, in which the shell form were formerly taught, and the shape of which is said to have given rise to this name, since adopted at several other public schools.
1875. Jean Ingelow, Fated to be Free, xix. The shell [Harrow] . . . means a sort of class between the other classes.
3. (venery).—The female pudendum: see Monosyllable.
4. (old).—In pl. = money: see Rhino. Hence to shell out = to pay. Fr. allonger les radis. Shelling-out = 'clubbing money together' (Grose).
1591. Greene, Notable Discovery [Works, x. 38]. The purse, the Bong, The monie, the Shels.
