or shite, subs. (vulgar).—Excrement: as verb. = to ease the bowels. Whence, SHIT = violent abuse: generic. Thus SHITSACK = (1) ‘a dastardly fellow,’ and (2) a Nonconformist (GROSE): also SHIT-STICKS, SHIT-RAG, SHIT-FELLOW, &c.; SHITTEN = worthless, contemptible; SHIDDLE-CUM-SHITE (SHITTLE-CUM-SHAW or SHITTLETIDEE) = nouns or exclamations of contempt; SHIT-FIRE = a bully; SHITTERS = the diarrhœa; SHIT-BAG = the belly: in pl. = the guts; SHIT-HOUSE = a privy; SHIT-POT = a rotten or worthless humbug; SHIT-HUNTER (or STIR-SHIT) = a sod; SHIT-SHARK = a gold-finder; SHIT-SHOE (or SHIT-SHOD) = derisive to one who has bedaubed his boot; SHIT-HOLE = the rectum; and TO SHIT THROUGH THE TEETH = to vomit. Also PROVERBS and PROVERBIAL SAYINGS: ‘SHITTEN-CUM-SHITE’S the beginning of love’ (proverbial); ‘Wish in one hand and SHIT in the other, and see which will first fill’; ‘Only a little clean SHIT (Scotticé, ‘clean dirt’)’: derisive to one bedaubed or bewrayed; ‘He (she, or it) looks as though the Devil had SHIT ’em flying’: of things and persons mean, dwarfed, eccentric, or ridiculous; ‘Like SHIT (sticking) TO A SHOVEL’: very adhesive indeed; ‘To swallow a sovereign and SHIT it in silver’ = the height of convenience; ‘SHIT in your teeth’ (old) = a foul retort on somebody who does not agree with you; ‘It shines like a SHITTEN barn-door’ (GROSE); ‘All is not butter the cow SH—TS’; ‘Claw a churl by the breech (or culls—JONSON) and he’ll SH— in your fist’; ‘The devil SH—S upon a great heap’; ‘SHITTEN luck’s good luck’; ‘Lincolnshire, where hogs SH— soap, and crows SH— fire’; ‘Go and eat coke and SHIT cinders’ (popular) = derisive and defiant; ‘Thought lay abed and SHIT himself, and thought he hadn’t done it.’
1576. Merie Tales … by Master Skelton, ix. Skelton then caste downe the clothes, and the Freere dyd lye starke naked: then Skelton dyd SHITE vpon the Freres Nauil and bellye.
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Dometa, an old worde for a SHITTEN fellow, or goodman turde, for meta is a heape of turde. Ibid., Cacastraccie, a SHITE-RAGS, an idle lazie fellow. Ibid., Cacastecchi … a SHITE-STICKS.
c. 1600. MONTGOMERIE, Poems [S.T.S.], I. 85, ‘Flyting.’ Halland-shaker, draught-raiker, bannock-baiker, ale-BESHITTEN.
c. 1616. JONSON, Epigrams, ‘On the Famous Voyage.’ Alas! they will BESHITE us. Ibid. And in so SHITTEN sort so long had used him.
16[?]. TAYLOR and SHIPMAN, Grobiana’s Nuptials, Sc. 7 [MS. (Bodleian) 30, leaf 21]. IS SHITTEN CUM SHITES THE BEGINNINGE OF LOVE? why then, Tantoblin, thou art happye, Grobiana’s thyne, the proverbe gives it thee.
1653. URQUHART, Rabelais, I. iv. Such SHITTEN stuff! Ibid., I. xi. He pissed in his shoes, SHIT in his shirt, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
1656. The Muses Recreation [HOTTEN], 24.
| But here have I seen old John Jones, | |
| From this hill, SHITE to yonder stones. |
1685. E. PHILLIPS, The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence, 185. Q. Why is sweet mistress so usual a complement? A. Because SHITTEN COMES SHITES IS THE BEGINNING OF LOVE.
1662. Rump Songs, ii. 3. That of all kinds of Lucks, SHITTEN Luck is the best. Ibid., ii. 24. For it SHIT from Portsmouth to Wallingford house.
1664. COTTON, Scarronides, or Virgile Travestie (1st ed.), 97.
| But with a bow the SHIT-BREECH elf | |
| Would shoot like Robin Hood himself. |
1665. PEPYS, Diary, 6 April. Sir G. Carteret … called Sir W. Batten in his discourse at the table to us … SHITTEN FOOLE, which vexed me.
1678. COTTON, Scarronides, or Virgile Travestie [Works (1725) 80].
| Among his mates, and wishes rather | |
| (And so the stripling told his father) | |
| For noughty vermin that would bite him, | |
| Or throstle nest, though’t did ————. |
1676. ROCHESTER, The History of Insipids, st. 14. And made them SHIT as small as Rats.
d. 1704. T. BROWN, Works, ii. 180. Knocking a SHITING porter down, when you were drunk, backwards in his own sir-reverence.
1706. WARD, The Wooden World Dissected, 69. ‘A Sailor.’ No man can ever have a greater contempt for Death, for every day he constantly SHITS on his own grave. Ibid. (1718), Helter Skelter. I say, sir, you’re a mean SHIT-FIRE.
1707. Old Ballad, ‘As the Fryer he Went along’ [D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707), iii. 130]. The Maid she SH—— and a Jolly brown T—— out of her Jolly brown Hole.
1708–10. SWIFT, Polite Conversation, ii. The young Gentlewoman is his Sweetheart;… They say in our Country, that SHITTEN-CUM-SHITE IS THE BEGINNING OF LOVE.
c. 1710. Broadside Song, ‘The Lass with the Velvet Arse’ [FARMER, Merry Songs and Ballads (1897), i. 214].
| When E’er she went to SH—— | |
| If twas ne’er such a little bit | |
| O she always wiped it with brown Paper. |
c. 1714. SWIFT, Miscellanies, ‘On the Discovery of the Longitude.’
| So Ditton and Whiston | |
| May both be be-pist on; | |
| And Whiston and Ditton | |
| May both be BE-SHIT on. |
1719. D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, iv. 112.
| SHITTEN COME SHITE THE BEGINNING OF LOVE is, | |
| And for her Favour I care not a Pin. |
c. 1731. The Windsor Medley, 13. How the old Proverb lyes, that says, SH—N Luck’s good!
d. 1749. ROBERTSON OF STRUAN, Poems, ‘A Late Dialogue between Captain Low and His Friend Dick.’
| But to be strain’d in Marriage-Press | |
| Is honourable … I confess, | |
| But never when the Bed’s BESHIT. |
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 96.
| May I be trampl’d, pist, and SH—T on, | |
| If I don’t think you’re right. |
1787. BURNS, Death and Doctor Hornbook. Just SHIT in a kail-blade and send it.
1826. J. BRUTON, My Mugging Maid [The Universal Songster, iii. 103].
| Why lie ye in that ditch, so snug, | |
| With S— and filth bewrayed. |
1838. WILLIAM WATTS (‘Lucian Redivivus’), Paradise Lost, 80.
| Fearing he’d —— himself. | |
| Ibid., 82. | |
| ‘Prithee,’ says I, ‘don’t make a bother; | |
| Wish in one hand, and S—- in t’other; | |
| And which will fill the first,’ says I, | |
| ‘You’ll soon discover if you try.’ |
