verb. (venery).—To copulate: see GREENS and RIDE; as subs. = the act of kind. Also (of women) TO GET A SHOVE IN ONE’S BLIND- (or THE BULL’S-) EYE. SHOVE-STRAIGHT (or SHOVE-DEVIL) = the penis: see PRICK.
16[?]. Old Ballad, ‘King Edward and Jane Shore’ [D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707), iii. 20].
| And Naples Joan could make them Groan that ardently did love her, | |
| But Jane Shore, Jane Shore, King Edward he did SHOVE her. |
1653. URQUHART, Rabelais, I. xi. His governesses … very pleasantly would pass their time in taking you know what between their fingers…. One … would call it her … Roger … lusty live sausage … SHOVE-DEVIL, &c.
1707. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus, II. ii. 21. If Holy Sister, wanting Grace, By Chance supplies a Harlot’s Place, And takes a kind refreshing SHOVE Upon the Bed of lawless Love.
PHRASES. TO SHOVE FOR (or TO BE ON THE SHOVE) = to move, to try for; TO SHOVE THE MOON = to remove secretly, by night: see MOON; TO SHOVE THE TUMBLER = ‘to be whipped at the cart’s tail’ (B. E. and GROSE); A SHOVE IN THE MOUTH = a dram (GROSE); TO SHOVE THE QUEER = to pass bad money; A SHOVE IN THE EYE = a punch in the eye: generic; TO GIVE THE SHOVE = to send packing; TO GET THE SHOVE = to be dismissed: see BAG.
1708. JOHN HALL, Memoirs, 15. Those cast for Petit-Larceny SHOVE THE TUMBLER.
1821. P. EGAN, Life in London, II. iii. I vish’d to be a little curl to Dirty Suke,… so I gov’d her a SHOVE IN THE MOUTH.
1830. BULWER-LYTTON, Paul Clifford (1854), 9. ‘Tom Tobyson is a good-for-naught,’ returned the dame, ‘and deserves TO SHOVE THE TUMBLER; but, oh, my child! be not too venturesome in taking up the sticks for a blowen.
1884. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, xxxviii. So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn’t behave so no more, and then me and Tom SHOVED FOR bed.
1893. MILLIKEN, ’Arry Ballads, 50, ‘At the Paris Exhibition.’ There is always some fun afoot there, as will keep a chap fair ON THE SHOVE.
1899. R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, iv. Mind your own bloomin’ business, or I ’ll give yer a SHOVE IN THE EYE. Ibid. x. Did you get THE SHOVE to-day? Ibid. xxi. If it war n’t ready, he GIVE THE SHOVE to the ’ole shoot.
