Chapter Shot Window to Sibylline Leaves of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Shot Window to Sibylline Leaves

Shot Window (A)- i.e. shot-out or projecting window, and not, as Ritson explains the word, a “window which opens and shuts.” Similarly, a projecting part of a building is called an out-shot. The aperture to give light to a dark staircase is called a “shot window.”

“Mysie flew to the shot window. ... `St. Mary! Sweet lady, here come two well-mounted gallants.' ”- Sir W. Scott: The Monastery, chaps. xiv. and xxviii.

Shotten Herring A lean spiritless creature, a Jack-o'- Lent, like a herring that has shot or ejected its spawn. Herrings gutted and dried are so called also.

“Though they like shotten-herrings are to see,
Yet such tall souldiers of their teeth they be,
That two of them, like greedy cormorants,
Devour more then sixe honest Protestants.”
Taylor's Workes, iii.5.

Shoulder Showing the cold shoulder. Receiving without cordiality some one who was once on better terms with you. (See Cold .)
   The government shall be upon his shoulders (Isaiah ix. 6). The allusion is to the key slung on the shoulder of Jewish stewards on public occasions, and as a key is emblematic of government and power, the metaphor is very striking.
   Straight from the shoulder. With full force. A boxing term.

“He was letting them have it straight from the shoulder.”- T. Tyrell: Lady Delmar, chap. v.

Shovel-board A game in which three counters were shoved or slid over a smooth board; a game very popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the table itself, and sometimes even the counters were so called. Slender speaks of “two Edward shovel-boards.” (Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 1.)

Show Show him an egg, and instantly the whole air is full of feathers. Said of a very sanguine man.

Shrew-mouse A small insectivorous mammal, resembling a mouse in form. It was supposed to have the power of injuring cattle by running over them; and to provide a remedy our forefathers used to plug the creature into a hole made in an ash-tree, any branch of which would cure the mischief done by the mouse. (Anglo-Saxon, screawa, a shrew-mouse; mouse is expletive.)

Shrieking Sisterhood (The). Women who clamour about “women's rights.”

“By Jove, I suppose my life wouldn't be worth a moment's purchase if I made public these sentiments of mine at a meeting of the Shrieking Sisterhood.”- The World, 24th February, 1892, p. 25.

Shrimp A child, a puny little fellow, in the same ratio to a man as a shrimp to a lobster. Fry is also used for children. (Anglo-Saxon, Scrine-an, to shrink; Danish, skrumpe; Dutch, krimpen.)

“It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp
Would strike such terror to his enemies.”
Shakespeare: 1 Henry VI., ii. 3.

Shropshire A contraction of Shrewsbury-shire, the Saxon Scrobbes-burh (shrub-borough), corrupted by the Normans into Sloppes-burie, whence our Salop.

Shrovetide Cocks Shrove Tuesday used to be the great “Derby Day” of cock-fighting in England.

“Or martyr beat, like Shrovetide cocks, with bats.”
Peter Pindar: Subjects for Painters.

Shunamite's House (The). An inn kept for the entertainment of the preachers at Paul's Cross. These preachers were invited by the bishop, and were entertained by the Corporation of London from Thursday before the day of preaching, to the following Thursday morning. (Maitland: London, ii. 949.)

Shunt A railway term. (Anglo-Saxon, scun-ran, to shun.)

Shut up Hold your tongue. Shut up your mouth.

Shy To have a shy at anything. To fling at it, to try and shoot it.

Shylock The grasping Jew, who “would kill the thing he hates.” (Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice.)