Shirt. To get one's shirt out (or lose one's shirt), verb. phr. (common).—To make (or get) angry. Hence, shirty = angry, ill-tempered.
1851-61. Mayhew, London Lab., iii. 147. They knocked his back as they went over, and he got shirtey.
1897. Maugham, Liza of Lambeth, iii. You ain't shirty 'cause I kissed yer?
Colloquialisms.—To bet one's shirt (or put one's shirt on) = to risk all; to fly round and tear one's shirt = to bestir oneself; shirt (or flag) in the wind = a fragment seen through the fly, or through a hole in the breech; 'that's up your shirt' = 'That's a puzzler for you'; 'Do as my shirt does' = 'Kiss my arse!'
c.1707. Ballad of Old Proverbs [Durfey, Pills, &c. (1707)], ii. 112. But if she prove her self a Flurt, Then she may do as does my shirt.
See also Boiled shirt; Bloody shirt; Historical (or Illustrated) shirt.
Shirt-sleevie, subs. phr. (Stonyhurst).—A
dance: on winter
Saturday evenings, and sometimes
in the open air at the end of summer
term. [The costume is
an open flannel shirt and flannel
trousers.]
Shise. See Shice.
Shit (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.'
