A pettifogging lawyer; a contemptible rascal.
1856. If these two ‘shuysters’ on the other side could get one more drink down your throat, you could n’t travel at all.—Knick. Mag., xlvii. 434 (April).
1857. The shysters, or Tombs lawyers, were on hand, and sought to intercede for their clients.—N.Y. Tribune, March 13 (Bartlett).
1857. One Mr. D. P. has borrowed a shyster for his amanuensis.—Oregon Weekly Times, Sept. 19.
1860. I had remained under the compression that outside of a kind of twopenny shystering smartness and snap-judgment genius, Dovey was, in a business way, rather a cross between a Dutch dumpling and a one-horse blower.—Knick. Mag., lvi. 458 (Nov.).
1863. By actual experiment in the recent draft we know that “shysters,” as they were called by some one here the other day, men in the cities, scoundrels, sold themselves as substitutes, and within a day or two deserted and went to another camp, again sold themselves as substitutes, and then deserted, and so they went from camp to camp.—Mr. John Sherman of Ohio, U.S. Senate, March 2: Cong. Globe, p. 1443/2. (This use of the word is peculiar).
1870. Above seven per cent is usury under the law, and there are not a few individuals of the “shyster” class who are ready to break their word, when they can shield themselves from prosecution under the pretence of illegal rates.—James K. Medbery, ‘Men and Mysteries of Wall Street,’ p. 123 (Boston).
1881. [Mr. Wayne MacVeagh] has chosen to shower favor and confidence upon a notorious criminal court shyster, jury-packer, and witness-corruptor, to whose debased mind an honorable thought is as alien as soap and water are to his filthy person.—Washington Critic, Sept. 10.
1881. Verily, the United States Treasury is a fat goose, to be plucked in the name of reform by an army of shysters and detectives.—Id., Dec. 23.
1882. He fights so shy of real trials that he may aptly be termed a shyster.—Washington Republican, Jan. 9.
1910. Whether or not Bingham’s dismissal was intended to make easier the work of shysters and their ilk, it is well known that the shysters interpreted it thus and need some strong act of repression to correct the notion.—N.Y. Evening Post, Jan. 10. See also STEERER.
