1801. STRUTT, Sports and Pastimes, 16. The game of SHOVELBOARD, though now considered as exceedingly vulgar, and practised by the lower classes of the people, was formerly in great repute amongst the nobility and gentry; and few of their mansions were without a SHOVAL-BOARD.
1841. Punch, 1. 232. The favourite game of SHOVE-HALFPENNY was kept up till a late hour, when the party broke up highly delighted.
1851-61. MAYHEW, London Lab., i. 14. SHOVE-HALFPENNY is another game played by them [costermongers].
SHOVEL, subs, (common).—A hat,
broad-brimmed, turned up at the
sides, and scooped in front, as
worn by deans and bishops of the
Established Church: also SHOVEL-HAT.
Whence SHOVEL-HATTED.
1833-4. CARLYLE, Sartor Resartus, iii. 6. Whereas the English Jonson only bowed to every clergyman, or man with a SHOVEL-HAT, I would bow to any man with any sort of hat, or with no hat whatever.
1845. THACKERAY, Cornhill to Cairo, ii. The mitred bishops, the big-wigged marshals, the SHOVEL-HATTED abbés which they have borne. Ibid. (1855), Newcomes, xxvi. She was a good woman of business, and managed the hat-shop for nine years . . . My uncle, the Bishop, had his SHOVELS there.
1849. Bronte, Shirley, xvi. Looming large in full canonicals, walking as became a beneficed priest, under the canopy of a SHOVEL HAT.
1853. LYTTON, My Novel, xi. 2. The profession of this gentleman's companion was unmistakeable—the SHOVEL-HAT, the clerical cut of the coat, the neckcloth, without collar.
1857. HUGHES, Tom Brown's Schooldays, i. 2. A queer old hat, something like a doctor of divinity's SHOVEL.
1864. ALFORD, Queen's English, 228. I once heard a venerable dignitary pointed out by a railway porter as 'an old party in a SHOVEL.'
1871. Parodies, lxxxi. 297. Now about the same time the people of England were at loggerheads with the SHOVEL-HATTED gentry that infest the upper house of St. Stephen's.
2. (common).—A hansom-cab: see SHOFUL.
3. (nautical).—An ignorant marine engineer.
18[?]. Engineer [Century], In the early days after the Crimea war, the engineers in the Navy were a rough lot. They were good men but without much education. They were technically known as SHOVELS.
PHRASES. PUT TO BED WITH A SHOVEL (or SPADE) = buried (GROSE); 'He was fed with a SHOVEL (or FIRE-SHOVEL) = a jeer at a large mouth' (GROSE); 'That's before you bought your SHOVEL' = 'You are too previous,' 'That's up against you,' 'That settles your hash.'
1859. MATSELL, Vocabulum, 'Hundren Stretches,' 3. WITH SHOVELS they were PUT TO BED A hundred stretches since.
SHOVER, subs, (thieves').—One who
utters base money; a SMASHER
(q.v.); a SOUR-PLANTER (q.v.):
also SHOVER OF THE QUEER.
1871. Figaro, 20 Feb. He established a saloon in New York which became the headquarters of all the counterfeiters and SHOVERS OF THE QUEER in the country.
SHOVE-UP, phr. (old).—'Nothing'
VAUX (1812).
SHOW, subs, (colloquial).—I. An
entertainment; a spectacle (as the
LORD MAYOR'S SHOW); (2) one's
business: cf. SHOP; and (3) a
piece of work. Also SHOW-BOX
(theatrical) = a theatre.
1530. TYNDALE, Works [OLIPHANT, New Eng., i. 427. He loves SHEW as a synonym for appearance and spectacle].
1588-93. TARLETONY, Jests (1844), 71. [OLIPHANT, New Eng., ii. 12. The noun SHEW . . . means a pageant.
1592. SHAKSPEARE, Mids. Night's Dream. The actors are at hand and by their SHOW You shall know all that you are like to know.
1613. DRAYTON, Poly-Olbion, xv. By this, the wedding ends, and brake up all the SHOW.
