Sheets

subs. (old).—Generic for sexual intercourse: thus, THE SHAKING OF THE SHEETS = the act of kind (orig. the name of an old country dance). Also BETWEEN THE SHEETS = in the act; WHITE- (or COLD-) SHEETS = chastity; STAINED (or FOUL) -SHEETS = fornication; LAWFUL SHEETS = wedlock; TO POSSESS A WOMAN’S SHEETS = to enjoy her.

  1600.  SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 3. Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of. Leon. O!—when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found Benedick and Beatrice BETWEEN THE SHEET?— Ibid. (1604), Winter’s Tale, i. 2. The purity and WHITENESS OF MY SHEETS. Ibid. (1605), Cymbeline, i. 6. Iach. Should he make me Live like Diana’s priest, betwixt COLD SHEETS, Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps? Ibid., ii. 2. The chastity he wounded…. WHITER THAN THE SHEETS! That I might touch! Ibid. (1605), King Lear, iv. 6. Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester’s bastard son Was kinder to his father than my daughters’ Got ’tween the LAWFUL SHEETS. Ibid. (1596), Hamlet, i. 2. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous SHEETS! Ibid. (1602), Othello, ii. 3. Iago. … He hath not yet made wanton the night with her; and she is sport for Jove…. Well, happiness to their SHEETS!

  c. 1603.  HEYWOOD, Woman Kill’d with Kindness, i. 1.

  1605.  CHAPMAN, JONSON, &c., The Insatiate Countesse, ii. You must not think to dance THE SHAKING OF THE SHEETS alone, though there be not such rare phrases in’t—’tis more to the matter.

  1607.  DEKKER and WEBSTER, Westward Ho! v. 2. Scrapers appear under the wenches’ comical window…. Cannot THE SHAKING OF THE SHEETS be danced without your town piping?

  1611.  L. BARRY, Ram Alley, v. i.

  1612.  CHAPMAN, The Widow’s Tears, i. 2. Eu. … I’ll have thee tost in blankets. Tha. In blankets, madam! you must add your SHEETS, and you must be the tosser. Re. Nay then, sir, y’are as gross as you’re saucy. Ibid. Ars. Did not one of the countess’s serving men tell us … that he had already POSSESS’D HER SHEETS.

  1633.  ROWLEY, A Match at Midnight, iii. 1. Thee and I shall dance THE SHAKING OF THE SHEETS together.

  1659.  MASSINGER, The City Madam, ii. 1.

  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes, ii. 96. There are many pretty provocatory Dances, as the Kissing dance, the Cushion dance, the SHAKING OF THE SHEETS, and such like, which are important instrumentall causes, whereby the skilfull hath both clients and custome.

  1768.  GAYTON, Festivious Notes on … Don Quixote, 25. But you Sancho, had the Austrian Donzella BETWIXT THE SHEETS, where I am afraid you did not behave so well as was wished.

  A SHEET [or THREE, or FOUR SHEETS] IN THE WIND (or WIND’S EYE).—More or less tipsy; HALF SEAS OVER (q.v.): see SCREWED.

  1821.  P. EGAN, Real Life in London, I. 385. Old Wax and Bristles is about THREE SHEETS IN THE WIND.

  1835.  R. H. DANA, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, 185. Though S. might be thought tipsy—A SHEET OR SO IN THE WIND—he was not more tipsy than was customary with him. He … seldom went up to the town without coming down THREE SHEETS IN THE WIND.

  1843.  W. T. PORTER, ed., The Big Bear of Arkansas, etc., 172. When he gets THREE SHEETS spred, and is tryin’ to unfarl the fourth, he can jist out-laugh the univarse.

  1879.  Chambers’s Journal, 14 June, 383. We had all messed together, and I’m afraid had got rather more than THREE SHEETS IN THE WIND, had aboard more than we could carry.

  1883.  R. L. STEVENSON, The Treasure of Franchard, iv. [Longman’s Magazine, April, 693]. Desprez was inclined to be A SHEET IN THE WIND’S EYE after dinner, especially after Rhône wine, his favourite weakness.

  1892.  W. E. HENLEY and R. L. STEVENSON, Three Plays, 209. Kit. What cheer, mother? I’m only a SHEET IN THE WIND; and who’s the worse for it but me?