shite, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

shite n.

[var. on shit n. (1a) and combs]

1. excrement.

1700		‘Ballad on the Old Proverbs’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy II 112: Yet you would say, if you knew all within, / Shitten come Shite the beginning of Love is, / And for her Favour I care not a pin.
1909		Joyce letter 20 Dec. to Nora Barnacle in Ellman Sel. Letters (1975) 192: Some night when [...] you feel your shite ready to fall put your arms round my neck in shame.
1942		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 99: There was a young fellow named Kelly / Who preferred his wife’s ass to her belly. / He shrieked with delight / As he ploughed through the shite, / And filled up her hole with his jelly.
1973		H. Leonard Da (1981) Act I: Sure, what’s Churchill anyway [...] only a yahoo, with a cigar stuck in his fat gob and the face on him like boiled shite.
1986		A. Bleasdale No Surrender 11: There’ll be walkin’ in a good deal of shite then.
1997		C. McPherson Weir 73: He’ll be like a fly on a big pile of shite, so he will.
2001		A. Bennett diary in Untold Stories (2006) 298: Shit I think of as the self-contained shapes; shite as what’s smeared round the sides of the bin.

2. an act of defecation.

1786		C. Morris ‘The Great Plenipotentiary’ Coll. of Songs (1788) 45: For fancied Delight, they all clubbed for a Shite, / To Frig in the School necessary.
1981		(con. 1920s) P. Crosbie Your Dinner’s Poured Out! 218: A shave, a shampoo and a shite and I’m a new man.
1987		T. Paulin ‘Why the Good Lord Must Persecute Me’ in Fivemiletown 46: I’ve just had a liquid shite.
1992		R. Doyle Brownbread and War 56: I have to have a shite – I’m goin’ in the corner here .
1998		A. Warner Sopranos 224: It’s no you did that shite in the taxi is it?

3. rubbish, nonsense.

1928		E. Hemingway letter 9 Aug. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 282: Bloody near 2550 words. Probably shite too.
1941		P. Larkin letter 23 June in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 16: What is truth? Balls. What is love? Shite.
1952		K. Amis letter 18 June in Leader (2000) 285: You don’t often, however much our sort may pretend so, pick up a book that’s four-star, alpha-plus, specially selected, cordon-bleu shite.
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 80: He’s getting paid for shite. Taking all that money off them dick-heads for performing that rubbish!
1990		R. Doyle Snapper 200: Don’t start tha’ raisin’ your eyes to heaven shite with me.
1999		Indep. Rev. 6 Nov. 8: It is a load of sanctimonious old shite.
2009		J. Joso Soothing Music for Stray Cats 66: They’d soon realise what wankers they really are [...] spending loads of dosh on therapy shite.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] Don’t give me your shite!
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 136: ‘What a pile of shite,’ said the woman.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 277: [S]he’d feel whole and wholesome, all that shite.
2022		A. Parks May God Forgive 62: ‘This is the kind of shite I had to put up with ten years ago’.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 235: ‘He’s all sweetness and shite, isn’t he?’.

4. an unpleasant person.

1929		E. Hemingway letter 9 Feb. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 295: You must have thought me a shite not to write.
1930		(con. 1918) J. Hanley German Prisoner 19: ‘You lump of shite [...] When you’ve learned to piss in your cap, you sucker, you’ll have room to talk’.
1958		P. Larkin in Thwaite Sel. Letters of Philip Larkin (1992) 295: You must feel lonely in London with nobody but shites to talk to.
1973		(con. 1940s–60s) Hogbotel & ffuckes ‘The Harlot of Jerusalem’ in Snatches and Lays 34: One day there chanced to heave in sight / A Jebusite, a bloody shite.
1979		F. Kelly Annals of Ballykilferret 41: Be japers I have ye now, ye shite!
1991		B. Quinn Smokey Hollow 79: The latter [...] regarded those well-dressed children as stuck-up snobs, called then ‘little shites with sugar on’.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 64: His biscuit-ersed face and his plukes completely ruin the image the smarmy wee shite’s tryin tae achieve.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 175: Go get the shite.
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 133: Don’t be such a dry shite, will you.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 10: They’re pure Wrexham shite, those two.
2012		C. Black ‘Topless Vampire Bitches’ in C. Rhatigan and N. Bird (eds) Pulp Ink 2 [ebook] A hard man, a gun man, and a cocky litttle gangster shite.

5. a derog. form of address.

1973		H. Leonard Da (1981) Act II: You old shite. You wouldn’t even use the money.
1982		A. Bleasdale ‘Moonlighter’ in Boys from the Blackstuff (1985) [TV script] 119: ’Cos the likes of you, y’ shite. You’re nothing. Y’ the dregs.
1988		R. Doyle Commitments 138: Yeh bad shite, yeh, said Jimmy.
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 291: But yer some dozy shite; Homer, aren’t you?
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 15: Ah’m gonnae knock your fuckin’ block off, ya cheeky wee shite!
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 154: You cocky little shite, Giles Noak.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 9: Fuck sake, girl, a collar is a collar is a collar — don’t they teach that to you soft shites.

6. the essence, the ‘daylights’.

1980

J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 37: There’s this buck wellying shite out of the wings of the car!

7. something useless, second-rate, inferior etc.

1996		A. Close Official and Doubtful 267: Nobody can get more than a couple of forkfuls of the shite down.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 4: Good gear like? Not cut with too much shite, no?
2009		Guardian Rev. 25 Apr. 15/5: ‘A bag of shite’ was the much quoted comment on his inauguration.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 52: The cut and adulterated shite that passes for coke on the street.
2014		T.M. Simmler ‘Suicide Chump’ in ThugLit July [ebook] My day had already been one huge cluster of black shite and buggery.

8. anything disgusting.

2000

P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 16: They’re covered in blood and shite, and all sorts.

In compounds

shite-all (n.)

see shit-all n.

shite-arse (n.)

see shit ass n.

shite-arsed (adj.)

see shit-ass adj.

shite-brained (adj.)

see shit-brained adj.

shitehawk (n.) (also shitehound) [SE hawk/-hound sfx]

a person of little worth; also attrib.

1945		J. Henderson Gunner Inglorious (1974) 141: Sucking from their fingers mere smears of food. ‘Shite-hawks’ we called them. They had lost all sense of reason and proportion.
1958		M.K. Joseph I’ll Soldier No More 95: That shitehawk [...] Why can’t a man like that be shot like a sick horse, can you tell me why, now?
1962		H. Livings Nil Carborundum (1963) Act I: I’ll show him. Him and his heel-banging shitehawk soldiers.
1972		Galton & Simpson ‘Loathe Story’ Steptoe and Son [TV script] They don’t want any dirty, smelly, uncouth little foul-mouthed shitehawks in hob-nailed boots.
1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 122: A straightforward Military Intelligence plan for the extermination of two flocks of dangerous shitehawks with the one stone.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 243: ‘More journalists,’ said Wayne. ‘Shite-hounds, you mean,’ said Oz.
1991		R. Doyle Van (1998) 407: Jimmy Sr. would throw the little shitehawk out on his ear if he turned up now.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 131: How come you write him up like a messiah when you know he’s a phoney little shitehawk?
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 48: The world is full of shite-hawks and envious ne’erdowells.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 248: Fashion came round in cycles. Shitehawks, she guessed, stayed the same.

shitehead (n.)

see shithead n.

shitehole (n.)

see shithole n.

shitehouse (n.)

see shithouse n.

shite-pit (n.)

see shit-pit under shit n.

shite-poke

see separate entries.

shitepot (n.)

see shitpot n. (2)

shite shifter (n.) [lit. a defecator]

(Irish) a term of abuse.

1979

J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 130: I know you [...] You non-conformist shite shifter.

In phrases

beat the shite out of (v.)

see beat the shit out of v.

break one’s shite (v.)

(Irish) to collapse in laughter.

2000

P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 115: Everyone breaks their shites laughing.

frighten the shite out of (v.) (also frighten the lard out of)

to terrify.

1952		B. MacMahon Children of the Rainbow 15: Just when I had the lard frightened out of them! You!
1996		R. Doyle Woman Who Walked Into Doors 18: I said the word Penis like I’d said Desk or Road. Erect. Menstruation. Vagina. Tampon. Headache. Great words; I frightened the shite out of them.