Shingle³

A sign-board, particularly one put out by a lawyer.

1842.  One William Dermott hoisted his shingle yesterday, at the corner of 13th. and Centre Streets, bearing the following inscription:—

^*_*^* It is to be feared that Dermot did not compose these lines, for they occurred on a tavern-sign in Bristol, with slight verbal difference, about the year 1820. See Notes and Queries, 6 S. ii. 325.

1842.  [M. P. Y. then occupied] a small office with a shingle on the shutter, designating him an “attorney at law” and all that. When Mr. F. again called for his money, the shingle had absquatulated from the shutter.—Id., June 29.

1843.  Lawyers stuck up their shingles at every county seat and village, from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains.—Nauvoo Neighbor, July 19: from the Cleveland Herald.

1845.  Elkanor Bunker was a lawyer; newly fedged, and as yet without a client. His ‘shingle’ … had gone up the day before.—Knick. Mag., xxvi. 221 (Sept.).

1848.  Did not the cobbler’s wife bustle about and feel consequentially happy when her lame-legged spouse hung out his little shingle?—Id., xxxi. 224 (March).

1848.  He set up a shingle in Broadway, some sixteen years ago, with a small assortment of animals, which he exhibited at a shilling a head admission.—Durivage and Burnham, ‘Stray Subjects,’ p. 115.

1848.  Doctors and dentists from the U.S. have stuck up their shingles in Mexico.—N.Y. Comm. Advertiser, Dec. 24 (Bartlett).

1852.  I scrabbled for a hotel—the best in the place—got my hoss put up and foddered, and walked out to find out whar the President’s shingle stuck out.—D. L. Roath, ‘Solomon Slug, &c.,’ p. 148 (N.Y.).

1852.  Ichabod went to work on Blackstone and Coke like a hero, passed his examination with infinite credit, and, mirabile dictu! was employed by a fellow charged with the crime of perjury, three days after he had nailed up his shingle.—Id., p. 156.

1853.  A young man who called himself Justin Tinker, and who for a short time figured as Counsellor-at-Law, Solicitor-in-Chancery, and Proctor-in-Admiralty. At least, so his shingle indicated.—Knick. Mag., xli. 511 (June).

1854.  The particular community in which the Squire had set up his shingle was not, even in the eyes of a more partial judgment than he was in the habit of exercising upon men, ever supposed to be colonized by the descendants of the good Samaritan.—J. G. Baldwin, ‘Flush Times,’ p. 288.

1855.  Here I ’ve been now these six months, spoiling the prettiest shingle you ever saw on a brick wall. [This was a doctor of medicine].—Knick. Mag., xlv. 31 (Jan.).

1857.  They never had a shingle hung up in Wall-street or thereabouts.—Id., xlix. 42 (Jan.).