Green’s Dictionary of Slang

shite n.

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

1. excrement.

[UK] ‘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.
[Ire]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.
[US] 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.
[Ire]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.
[UK]A. Bleasdale No Surrender 11: There’ll be walkin’ in a good deal of shite then.
[UK]C. McPherson Weir 73: He’ll be like a fly on a big pile of shite, so he will.
[UK]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.

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.
[Ire](con. 1920s) P. Crosbie Your Dinner’s Poured Out! 218: A shave, a shampoo and a shite and I’m a new man.
[UK]T. Paulin ‘Why the Good Lord Must Persecute Me’ in Fivemiletown 46: I’ve just had a liquid shite.
R. Doyle Brownbread and War 56: I have to have a shite – I’m goin’ in the corner here .
[UK]A. Warner Sopranos 224: It’s no you did that shite in the taxi is it?

3. rubbish, nonsense.

[US]E. Hemingway letter 9 Aug. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 282: Bloody near 2550 words. Probably shite too.
[UK]P. Larkin letter 23 June in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 16: What is truth? Balls. What is love? Shite.
[UK]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.
[UK]A. Sayle Train to Hell 80: He’s getting paid for shite. Taking all that money off them dick-heads for performing that rubbish!
[Ire]R. Doyle Snapper 200: Don’t start tha’ raisin’ your eyes to heaven shite with me.
[UK]Indep. Rev. 6 Nov. 8: It is a load of sanctimonious old shite.
[UK]J. Joso Soothing Music for Stray Cats 66: They’d soon realise what wankers they really are [...] spending loads of dosh on therapy shite.
[Scot]T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] Don’t give me your shite!
[Ire]L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 136: ‘What a pile of shite,’ said the woman.
[Ire]L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 277: [S]he’d feel whole and wholesome, all that shite.
[UK]M. Herron Secret Hours 235: ‘He’s all sweetness and shite, isn’t he?’.

4. an unpleasant person.

[US]E. Hemingway letter 9 Feb. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 295: You must have thought me a shite not to write.
[UK](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’.
[UK]P. Larkin in Thwaite Sel. Letters of Philip Larkin (1992) 295: You must feel lonely in London with nobody but shites to talk to.
[Aus](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.
[Ire]F. Kelly Annals of Ballykilferret 41: Be japers I have ye now, ye shite!
[Ire]B. Quinn Smokey Hollow 79: The latter [...] regarded those well-dressed children as stuck-up snobs, called then ‘little shites with sugar on’.
[Scot]I. Welsh Trainspotting 64: His biscuit-ersed face and his plukes completely ruin the image the smarmy wee shite’s tryin tae achieve.
[UK]J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 175: Go get the shite.
[Ire]J. O’Connor Salesman 133: Don’t be such a dry shite, will you.
[UK]K. Sampson Awaydays 10: They’re pure Wrexham shite, those two.
[US]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.

[Ire]H. Leonard Da (1981) Act II: You old shite. You wouldn’t even use the money.
[UK]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.
[Ire]R. Doyle Commitments 138: Yeh bad shite, yeh, said Jimmy.
[Ire]J. O’Connor Salesman 291: But yer some dozy shite; Homer, aren’t you?
[US]T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 15: Ah’m gonnae knock your fuckin’ block off, ya cheeky wee shite!
[UK]D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 154: You cocky little shite, Giles Noak.
[UK]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’.

[UK]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.

[UK]A. Close Official and Doubtful 267: Nobody can get more than a couple of forkfuls of the shite down.
[UK]N. Griffiths Grits 4: Good gear like? Not cut with too much shite, no?
[UK]Guardian Rev. 25 Apr. 15/5: ‘A bag of shite’ was the much quoted comment on his inauguration.
[UK]K. Sampson Killing Pool 52: The cut and adulterated shite that passes for coke on the street.
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.

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

In compounds

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

a person of little worth; also attrib.

[NZ]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.
[UK]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?
[UK]H. Livings Nil Carborundum (1963) Act I: I’ll show him. Him and his heel-banging shitehawk soldiers.
[UK]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.
[Ire]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.
[UK]F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 243: ‘More journalists,’ said Wayne. ‘Shite-hounds, you mean,’ said Oz.
[Ire]R. Doyle Van (1998) 407: Jimmy Sr. would throw the little shitehawk out on his ear if he turned up now.
[UK]K. Sampson Powder 131: How come you write him up like a messiah when you know he’s a phoney little shitehawk?
[UK]J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 48: The world is full of shite-hawks and envious ne’erdowells.
[Ire]L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 248: Fashion came round in cycles. Shitehawks, she guessed, stayed the same.
shite-poke

see separate entries.

In phrases

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

to terrify.

[UK]B. MacMahon Children of the Rainbow 15: Just when I had the lard frightened out of them! You!
[Ire]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.
give out shite (v.) [give out v. (9)]

(Irish) to criticize, to scold.

[Ire]R. Doyle Van (1998) 475: Maggie gave out shite; she said she’d never be able to get the rings off the bath.
have one’s shite (v.)

(Irish) to be due to suffer, usu. as an indication of rejection.

[Ire]Share Slanguage.
shite-for-brains

see under shit-for-brains.

In exclamations

a shite on!

synon. with ‘to hell with’.

[UK]C. Morris ‘The Virgin Minister’ Collection of Songs (1788) 59: He told a damn’d lie / In the ear of the king; / Then a shite on his name.