Chapter SHADDOCK to SHALEE of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

SHADDOCK to SHALEE

SHADDOCK, s. This name properly belongs to the West Indies, having been given, according to Grainger, from that of the Englishman who first brought the fruit thither from the East, and who was, according to Crawfurd, an interloper captain, who traded to the Archipelago about the time of the Revolution, and is mentioned by his contemporary Dampier. The fruit is the same as the pommelo (q.v.). And the name appears from a modern quotation below to be now occasionally used in India. [Nothing definite seems to be known of this Capt. Shaddock. Mr. R.C.A. Prior (7 ser. N. & Q., vii. 375) writes: “Lunan, in ‘Hortus Jamaicensis,’ vol. ii. p. 171, says, ‘This fruit is not near so large as the shaddock, which received its name from a Capt. Shaddock, who first brought the plant from the East Indies.’ The name of the captain is believed to have been Shattock, one not uncommon in the west of Somersetshire. Sloane, in his ‘Voyage to Jamaica,’ 1707, vol. i. p. 41 says, ‘The seed of this was first brought to Barbados by one Capt. Shaddock, commander of an East Indian ship, who touch’d at that island in his passage to England, and left its seed there.’ ” Watt (Econ. Dict. ii. 349) remarks that the Indian vernacular name Batavi nibu, ‘Batavian lime,’ suggests its having been originally brought from Batavia.]

[1754.—“… pimple-noses (pommelo), called in the West Indies, Chadocks, a very fine large fruit of the citron-kind, but of four or five times its size. …”—Ives, 19.]

1764.—

“Nor let thy bright impatient flames destroy
—Grainger, Bk. I.

1803.—“The Shaddock, or pumpelmos (pommelo), often grows to the size of a man’s head.”—Percival’s Ceylon, 313.

[1832.—“Several trays of ripe fruits of the season, viz., kurbootahs (shadock), kabooza (melons). …”—Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations, i. 365.]

1878.—“… the splendid Shaddock that, weary of ripening, lays itself upon the ground and swells at ease. …”—In My Indian Garden, 50.

[1898.—

“He has stripped my rails of the shaddock frails and the green unripened pine.”

R. Kipling, Barrack Room Ballads, p. 130.]

SHADE (TABLE-SHADE, WALL-SHADE), s. A glass guard to protect a candle or simple oil-lamp from the wind. The oldest form, in use at the beginning of the last century, was a tall glass cylinder which stood on the table, the candlestick and candle being placed bodily within in. In later days the universal form has been that of an inverted dome fitting into the candlestick, which has an annular socket to receive it. The wall-shade is a bracket attached to the wall, bearing a candle or cocoa-nut oil lamp, protected by such a shade. In the wine-drinking days of the earlier part of last century it was sometimes the subject of a challenge, or forfeit, for a man to empty a wall-shade filled with claret. The second quotation below gives a notable description of a captain’s outfit when taking the field in the 18th century.

1780.—“Borrowed last Month by a Person or Persons unknown, out of a private Gentleman’s House near the Esplanade, a very elegant Pair of Candle Shades. Whoever will return the same will receive a reward of 40 Sicca Rupees.—N.B. The Shades have private marks.”—Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, April 8.

1789.—“His tent is furnished with a good large bed, mattress, pillow, &c., a few camp-stools or chairs, a folding table, a pair of shades for his candles, six or seven trunks with table equipage, his stock of linen (at least 24 shirts); some dozens of wine, brandy, and gin; tea, sugar, and biscuit; and a hamper of live poultry and his milchgoat.”—Munro’s Narrative, 186.

1817.—“I am now finishing this letter by candle-light, with the help of a handkerchief tied over the shade.”—T. Munro, in Life, i. 511.

[1838.—“We brought carpets, and chandeliers, and wall shades (the great staple commodity of Indian furniture), from Calcutta. …”—Miss Eden, Up the Country, 2nd ed. i. 182.]

SHAGREEN, s. This English word, —French chagrin; Ital. zigrino; Mid. High Ger. Zager,—comes from the Pers. saghri, Turk. saghri, meaning properly the croupe or quarter of a horse, from which the peculiar granulated leather, also called saghri in the East, was originally made. Diez considers the French (and English adopted) chagrin in the sense of vexation to be the same word, as certain hard skins prepared in this way were used as files, and hence the word is used figuratively for gnawing vexation, as (he states) the Ital. lima also is (Etym. Worterbuch, ed. 1861, ii. 240). He might have added the figurative origin of tribulation. [This view is accepted by the N.E.D.; but Prof. Skeat (Concise Dict.) denies its correctness.]

1663.—“… à Alep … on y travaille aussi bien qu’à Damas le sagri, qui est ce qu’on appelle chagrin en France, mais l’on en fait une bien plus grande quantité en Perse. … Le sagri sa fait