intj. (old).—Be off! Away! As verb. = to scare away. ‘Cannot say SHOOH to a goose’ (RAY) = a retort on timidity or bashfulness: see BOH.
1611. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Scioare, to cry SHOOE, SHOOE, as women do to their hens.
1623. FLETCHER and ROWLEY, The Maid in the Mill, v. 1. SHOUGH, SHOUGH, up to your Coop, Pea-hen.
1883. MARY HALLOCK FOOTE, The Last Assembly Ball, in The Century Magazine, xxxvii. 788. He gave her an ivory wand and charged her, on her life, to tell him what she would do with it, and she sobbed out she would SHOO her mother’s hens to roost with it.
