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 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 8. There are the new verbs rooke (plunder) and SHARKE (prey)].
1596. SHAKESPEARE, 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, Every Man out of his Humour. Characters. … Shift. A threadbare SHARK.… His profession is skeldring and odling. Ibid. (1609), Epicœne, or the Silent Woman, iv. 2. A very SHARK; he set me in the nick t’other night at Primero.
1606–8. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Loves Cure, or the Martial Maid Women Pleas’d. Dramatis Personæ. A SHARKING, panderly constable.
1608. DEKKER, The 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, The Knave of Clubs [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1872], 10.
| Two hungry SHARKES did travaile Pauls, | |
| Untill 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, Microcosmographie, 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.
c. 1639. WOTTON, Letter to M. Velserus. “A dirty SHARKER about the Romish court, who only scribbles that he may dine.”
1653. MIDDLETON, The 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, Roderick Random, iii. We returned to the village, my uncle muttering all the way against the old SHARK.
1760. C. JOHNSTONE, Chrysal, I. 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. A. TROLLOPE, The 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. J. NEWMAN, Scamping Tricks, 2. It is part of the stock in trade of such rare old SHARKS as us.
1898. FERGUS NISBET, Hagar of the Pawn-shop, 8. ‘You’d take my money to yourself,’ interrupted Dix with irony. ‘Not if I know it, you SHARK!’
2. (old).—‘A custom-house officer or tide-waiter’ (GROSE). Also in pl. = the press-gang.
1828. DOUGLAS JERROLD, Ambrose Gwinett, i. 3. Gil. A word with you—the SHARKS are out to-night. Label. The SHARKS? Gil. Ay, the blue-jackets—the press-gang.
3. (old).—‘One of the first order of pickpockets. Bow St. term, A.D. 1785’ (GROSE).
4. (military).—A recruit.
5. (American college).—At Yale = reckless absence from college duties: of persons and conduct.
6. (Western American).—A lean hungry hog (BARTLETT).
Verb. (colloquial).—1. To fawn for a dinner.
2. See subs.
