shit n.
1. in context of excrement.
(a) excrement.
| [ | ![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Invectiues Capitane Allexander Montgomeree and Pollvart in Parkinson Poems (2000) II line 172: They saw the schit all beschyttin]. |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | London Spy IV 83: The mixtures of Scents that arose from Mundungus-Tobacco, foul Sweaty Toes, Dirty Shirts, the Sh—t Tub, stinking Breaths and uncleanly Carcasses. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | ‘The Gentleman’s Study’ Dublin Mag. 22: Nor overcome by stink of S--t, Which in the Pot, and round about The Brim, and Sides, he squirted out. | |
| Pierce Egan’s Life in London 26 Sept. 4/3: ‘[W]ithout the aid of casting it in the incantation scene of Fly-shits.’ ‘You are wrong, my friend, Freischutz is the name of the piece’. | |
| Flash Mirror 11: Why is a greeny’s head like a slaughter house? — Because it is all blood and s—t. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Night Side of N.Y. 98: Over there is where the nigger killed the white man some time since. They called it S— Alley. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) III 597: I could see [...] a smear of shit on her chemise. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 16 Mar. 3/6: [W]hat is the , difference between Manly and Bondi [...] [A]t the one they shoot the chute, and at the other they shoot the— well, the sewage outlet is at Bondi. | |
| Living (1978) 375: ’E ’ad no more use for me more’n a bit of shit on ’is shoe. | |
| Tropic of Cancer (1963) 62: The little well was slimy with excrement, which in English is shit. | |
| Horse’s Mouth (1948) 136: Two trees, four clouds, and a little piece of dog-shit in the foreground. | |
| Bang To Rights 20: The sink [...] was blocked and there were lumps of shit and pieces of paper floating in it. | |
| Last Exit to Brooklyn 243: She [...] opened the door and was about to step in when she noticed a pile [...] of human shit on the elevator floor. | |
| Animal Factory 22: Two hundred and fifty screaming convicts who burned cells and threw shit and piss on passing guards. | |
| Homeboy 49: I [...] used a plastic fork in the tank to pick them out of my shit. | |
| Happy Like Murderers 331: There was shitting involved. One female eating the other’s shit. | |
| Stuff 93: The most revolting smell in the world, of farts and rotten eggs and cheesy socks moulied up with shit, piss and sick. | |
| Consolation 13: Piss and shit odours drilling into his sinuses. | |
| Riker’s 80: His shit hit the floor. |
(b) an act of defecation.
 | implied in take a shit | |
| letter 4 Sept. in Complete Works X (1998) 228: As to new words, here are some [...] Pony = a shit. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 138: There was a young fellow named Bart / Who strained every shit through a fart. | |
| (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 67: Everyone tried to get a couple of shits in the daytime. | |
| All Bull 19: ‘Where the fuck d’you think you’ve been.’ [...] ‘’Avin’ a shit, sarge.’. | |
| Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 35: I need a shit. | |
| (con. 1967) Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 168: During the siege a shit is like going and having your hair done. | |
| Observer Mag. 5 Sept. 31: I need a big shit. | |
| Stuff 49: He came down the landing to have a shit in the upstairs lavatory. | |
| Panopticon (2013) 233: Anais Hendricks took a long shit. |
2. pertaining to individuals (or objects).
(a) a contemptible person; often in combs., e.g. little shit, dumb shit.
| Flyting in Dunbar Poems I (1998) 216: [Thou art] A schit but wit. | |
| marginalia in Chronicles of England (c.1464) n.p.: Henry Medlton is a shyt and loussy knav I dar bowth say and swer. | |
| Flyting with Polwart in Poems I (2000) 142: Schort mischappin schit. | |
| in Kingarth Parish Rec. (1932) 103: He had basely slanderd him calling shit, thief, beast. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 261: Just to chaff him a bit / She said, ‘You old shit, / I can buy a dildo for a sovereign’. | |
| ‘Nursery Rhymes’ in Pearl 5 Nov. 32: Said she, ‘You damned shit, / You can’t fuck a bit.’. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) II 387: She was revoltingly coarse in her talk [...] Everybody was also a bloody bugger or a bloody shit. | |
| Pleasure Bound ‘Ashore’ 104: He spoke of all his relatives / As buggers, shits, and turds. | |
| Mint (1955) 128: Serve the little shit right. | |
| (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 199: ’Oo’s the bloody shit ’o invented this way o’ doin’ up a fuckin’ overcoat? | |
| World I Never Made 26: ‘Go fuck yourself!’ the kid with the beer snarled. ‘Yuh shit!’ one of the other kids snapped back at him. | |
| letter 20 Dec. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 7: My aunt & uncle are shits. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Till Human Voices Wake Us 2: When a Maori says Pakeha [...] [h]e says it like a man would say s—t . | |
| letter 30 Nov. in Charters II (1999) 85: Brando is a shit, doesnt answer letter from greatest writer in America. | |
| ‘The Dance’ in Coll. Poems (1988) 156: [...] some shoptalking shit who leads me off / To supper and his bearded wife. | |
| (con. 1940s) Confessions 65: He had to go between a file of Free State Army police shit who beat him with batons. | |
| Down All the Days 174: ‘You little shit,’ growled Father. | |
| Serial 23: I never knew before what a total shit I was. | |
![[Oth]](/static/img/flags/oth.png "(Other)") | House of Hunger (2013) [book] ‘All you did was starve yourself to send this shit to school’. | |
| Bonfire of the Vanities 62: The little shit was wearing a pair of red silk moiré suspenders. | |
| Powder 245: The little shit! That’s so evil of him! | |
| Dead Point (2008) [ebook] Terry Baine. That fat shit. | |
| sa*Stuff 31: Irredeemable lickspittling little shits. | |
| me-stepmums-too-fuckin-hot-mate at www.fakku.net 🌐 It’s not even recess yet you little shit. | |
| Boy from County Hell 36: ‘[S]hit like you’s walking around enjoying life’. | |
| Orphan Road 47: The death of that fat shit Brian Grove hadn’t interested Hardigan. | |
| Secret Hours 331: ‘You really are a shit, aren’t you?’. |
(b) a person, irrespective of qualities.
| New Centurions 243: ‘My name is Lance Jeffrey Savage,’ said Gus [...] ‘Ain't he the cutest little shit?’ said Fluffy . | |
| Maledicta IX 159: Shit need not mean feces in expressions such as cute little shit, get your shit together, tough shit, shit-list, hot shit, even full of shit; in these usages, shit is ‘almost neutral.’. | |
| At End of Day (2001) 153: His father was a good shit. |
(c) (orig. US black) constr. with the, of things or people, the best, the ideal, the ultimate.
| Campus Sl. Fall 7: the shit – the best, the tops. | |
| ‘Tha Shiznit’ 🎵 Snoop Dogg is the shit, beeatch! | |
| Westsiders 219: Reassured, Babyboy bounds around the room, saying, ‘This is the shit’. | |
| Londonstani (2007) 45: Why they decided that The Shit should mean The Greatest I got no idea, maybe cos bad’s always meant good. | |
| Life 84: It was either that’s the shit or that isn’t the shit, no matter what kind of music you were talking about [...] there was a definite line of what the shit was and what wasn’t the shit. |
(d) a boastful, pretentious person, a braggart.
| The Weir 16: Ah he’s only old shit. He wouldn’t have the nerve. | |
| Birthday 105: ‘I can read you like a book.’ ‘And what page are you on now, sharpshit?’. |
(e) the body, the genitals.
| Keisha the Sket (2021) 57: A gurl datz had da whole estate drillin up in her shit rawbck. |
(f) (US black) oneself.
| ‘Know Your Place’ Wire ser. 4 ep. 9 [TV script] If these police out here knew how to fuck me even just a little, my shit’d be in handcuffs. |
3. in fig./abstract uses.
(a) fig. anything seen as unpleasant and disgusting.
| in Blatchford Memoirs (1983) 106: The Government is a load of shit. | |
| N&Q 12 Ser. IX 418: ‘Mud’ and ‘dirt’ were never mentioned in the army; all was ‘s–-t.’ A man who had been in a muddy trench would say he had been ‘up to his eyes in s–-t’. | |
| World I Never Made 313: I’m going back to my mother and leave you with all this shit and stink. | |
| South Street 118: Why do you want to hurt her? Look out, baby, that shit’s dangerous! | |
| Absolute Beginners 204: I told him he might not remember me, but he was a lump of s—t. | |
| Essential Lenny Bruce 98: Awl thayat shit on his nayils and evvrithin. | |
| Living Black 187: We used to get all sorts of shit thrown at us, black bastards, niggers you name it. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | ‘The Advertisement’ in They Came at Dawn 10: Sally cunt whitening cream lightens your skin / sis that shit may / lighten and brighten / your soft black / velvet brown / beautiful bronze skin / but strusgod / your soul will never turn white in the night. | |
| Godson 10: ‘Fancy a cup of coffee, Price?’ ‘Yeah. But not that instant shit’. | |
| Cause of Death (1997) 168: It’s muddy and there’s shit all over the place [...] broken glass, rotting paper. | |
| Vatican Bloodbath 8: Now, how about one of you motherfuckers goes and gets us some of that good-shit wine they got downstairs and not some of this po’ nigga shit that y’all sittin’ here drinkin? | |
| Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] Why do roses need that chemical shit Harry’s spraying. | |
| Running the Books 14: There’s plenty a shit to go around here, kid [...] You breathe the same fuckin’ diseased air we breathe. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] When all that hideous shit with mum went down. | |
| Blacktop Wasteland 48: ‘I don’t bring that shit around my kids’. |
(b) an unpleasant situation; usu. as phr. in (the) shit
| in Prelude (1967) 274: Some shit! | |
| (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 101: They’ve only let us come up ’ere for a couple of days to ’ave a bon time before they send us up into the shit again. | |
| Death Ship 368: The devil, six grate-bars have dropped. Damn the whole shit. | |
| letter 21 Jan. in Proud Highway (1997) 311: You say [...] you will get a lot of noisy shit, perhaps even from the editor you send it to. | |
| (con. 1941) Gunner 136: Shit of a turn-out, init. | |
| Day of the Dog 8: I got you out of all sort of shit, ’fore I went in. | |
| Pugilist at Rest 85: I can’t believe this shit. That motherfucker ’P. at the gate is pulling me over. Look at that. Can you believe this shit? | |
| Rubdown [ebook] It had been a shit of a week. | |
| Urban Grimshaw 20: So I was used to the life of shit that we were leading. | |
| Truth 13: Saturday there’s shit across the road here, I ring the cops, twenty minutes, I ring again, it’s a bloody riot out there, mate. | |
| Gutshot Straight [ebook] Gina wondered if they had time to fool around a little, before the shit jumped off. | |
| ‘Sunset’ in Broken 213: W‘e’re too old for this shit’. | |
| Orphan Road 32: ‘[A] lot of strange shit is happening’. |
(c) problems, difficulties.
| (con. 1917–19) Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 479: Hell, I’m going to sea and get out of all the s––t. | |
| letter 7 Apr. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 57: We were both distressed to read your letter & learn the packet of shit you had landed in. | |
| letter 11 Jan. in Harris (1993) 79: When I think of all the shit you have to put up with in the States I wonder why I didn’t leave years ago. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 143: I been through twice the shit all you niggers been through. | |
| S.R.O. (1998) 73: ‘If I don’t pay on time, they just might start some shit’. | |
| Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 14: Don’t drag your ma and pa from out their graves to bail you out for all the shit. | |
| Curvy Lovebox 111: Nood’s gonna get fuckin’ shit for this. | |
| Black Tide (2012) [ebook] Any shit at that front door, I’m goin right rapidly. Small edge of goin left, they say. | |
| Grits 27: Thir’s always fuckin somethin, isunt thir? Always some shit yuv got tuh deal with. | |
| Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] Sam’s in shit because he’s bad news and now he has to cop it. | |
| Glorious Heresies 6: It [i.e. a house] echoed shit he didn’t want to think about in chasms that shouldn’t have been there. | |
| Class Act [ebook] You had to be young to believe shit only happened to other people . | |
| Scrublands [ebook] ‘I went through shit as a kid because my father was a rapist’. | |
| Widespread Panic 161: I had Whiskey Bill Parker’s home number if I fell in the shit. |
(d) (US) constr. with the, something bad.
| letter c.13 Dec. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 266: Knowing nothing about James it seems to me to be the shit [...] You have read more and better ones than this doubtless but he seems an enormous fake in this. |
(e) any inferior, rubbishy, shoddy or pretentious thing.
| letter 5 Jan. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 143: If you want I’ll give you a card to him but cards are such shit. | |
| letter 13 June in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 394: It is commonplace that I lack confidence that I am a man – what shit. | |
| Roofs of Paris (1983) 212: You can stand just so much of that shit. | |
| (con. 1944) Naked and Dead 258: Well, now, how do you like that ol’ shit? | |
| Naked Lunch (1968) 37: He degrades the female sex by forcing his chicks to swallow all this shit. | |
| Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 321: Now this, I reckon, is not shit. | |
| ‘A Boy and his Dog’ in Beast that Shouted Love (1976) 208: They ate artificial shit: artificial peas and fake meat [...] and it all tasted like chalk and dust to me. | |
| Street Players 24: Ain’t that about a pound of pure shit! | |
| Educating Rita II v: You would have thrown it across the room and dismissed it as a heap of shit, wouldn’t you? | |
| Crosskill [ebook] ‘Park that heap of shit outside your own place’. | |
| (con. 1960s) London Blues 170: The story is shit and I didn’t even attempt to explain Mary’s presence. | |
| Hip-Hop Connection Jan./Feb. 26: We have the power [...] to see through shit and read muthafuckers. | |
| Intractable [ebook] If the play was shit Jim [McNeil] would have known within the first minutes of the curtain lifting. | |
| Opal Country 194: ‘You see him, you tell us. No vigilante shit’. | |
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 33: [of a prison yard] ‘If this shit was the fucking Disney Castle and Ise Prince Charming [...] I could see you wanting to stay’. |
(f) any thing (material or otherwise), irrespective of its actual quality, ‘stuff’.
| Tropic of Cancer (1963) 52: We’ll throw out all the other contributors and we’ll fill it with our own shit. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1964) 224: Many executives go to the university in the summer to read up on philosophy and shit like that. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 183: Nobody had ever stuck me up or shit like that. | |
| Family Arsenal 65: Maybe buy myself a boat [...] Or a car. Maybe a stereo. Shit like that. | |
| ‘Soul on Ice’ 🎵 I got the flyest new shit rolling off gasoline. | |
| White Boy Shuffle 64: Nobody better be sitting at my desk. I had the shit last year and I want it back for good luck. | |
| Corner (1998) 27: The more money he makes, the more shit he manages to buy. | |
| Observer Mag. 26 Sept. 37: Then we started to get into weird shit. | |
| Night Gardener 38: Finish your beer [...] We got shit to do. | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] Some people had fun lives and did shit like this all the time. | |
| Hilliker Curse 29: I knew I’d sort my shit out at some point. | |
| Life 403: I’ve got my shit with me, needles and stuff. | |
| Panopticon (2013) 236: The social worker was all like [...] everyone else sees the small cat, but a schizophrenic looks, and they see a lion. ‘Trippy shit’ . | |
| Whites 2: Too much of that shit [i.e. energy drinks] make you even more tired [...] Like a boomerang. | |
| Scrublands [ebook] ‘Got us to do shit together. Taught us how to be friends’. | |
| Blacktop Wasteland 27: ‘People never run out of junk.’ [...] ‘Yeah, always got shit to throw away’. | |
| Who They Was 6: We were still clamping up the woman tryna rip her shit off. | |
| Joey Piss Pot 6: ‘You goinna do that shit [i.e. extra-marital affairs], you better be more careful’. |
(g) nothing; thus in negative, anything, something; usu. as not mean (a) shit, not matter, not mean anything; not worth a shit phr.
| Lucifer with a Book 57: I’ll study shit, said Buddy Brown under his breath. | |
| in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 1 June: However Wilson is on me doesn’t mean a shit. | |
| Night Song (1962) 118: This cat ain’t sayin’ shit to nobody. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 89: I told him like I did every stud / that it wasn’t shit for me to drink two or three fifths a some real good blood. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 52: They were Puerto Ricans just like we were, but this didn’t mean shit, under our need to keep our reps. | |
| Cop Team 80: I don’t have to show you shit. | |
| Carlito’s Way 37: He’s getting big bucks and he ain’t doing shit. | |
| Cujo (1982) 40: He did not know Roger Breaksone from shit. [Ibid.] 220: Maybe doesn’t matter shit one way or the other. | |
| Christine 1: Yeah, I know that doesn’t mean donkeyshit. | |
| (con. 1968) Reckoning for Kings (1989) 289: I wasn’t thinking shit. | |
| (con. 1956) My Secret Hist. (1990) 5: You don’t know shit about guns. | |
| Pulp Fiction [film script] 14: Foot massages don’t mean shit. | |
| Curvy Lovebox 10: Too fat with themselves to know shit. | |
| Observer Mag. 22 Aug. 14: That’s why you English don’t win shit. | |
| Hip-Hop Connection Jan./Feb. 26: I wouldn’t change shit man. | |
| Random Family 330: She did all that time for nothing. She did all that time for shit. | |
| Turning Angel 283: Cyrus’s homeys won’t say shit to those cracker cops. | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘Worst fucking job in my life. Getting paid shit to be nice to people’. | |
| Life 300: You had actually crossed a border and nobody knew shit or did shit about it. | |
| Sellout (2016) 85: Spanky didn’t do shit but fuck bitches. | |
| Joey Piss Pot 183: ‘They still won’t tell you shit’. |
(h) abuse, offensive and contemptuous treatment, usu. as give someone shit or take shit
| implied in take shit | |
| Deep Down In The Jungle 149: Then the monkey’s wife started her shit, / ‘See that, monkey, that’s what you git / Going around signifying and shit’. | |
| Dopefiend (1991) 155: I don’t want no shit out of you. | |
| Godson 307: I was a bit rough on the poor bludger [...] But you have to be to get that shit out of your system. | |
| Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 shit [...] 3. complaints, criticism. (‘I’ve been getting a lot of shit from my landlord.’). | |
| Base Nature [ebook] ‘The idiot, lying there all broken and taking their shit’. | |
| Shore Leave 24: It was almost like the amount of shit he’d received was part of a higher plan. |
(i) (orig. US black) a general abstract term, a thing, a situation, an opinion or idea; the precise meaning varies as to the context, e.g. I don’t like this shit, I don’t like what’s happening.
| ‘Badman Dan and Two-Gun Green’ in et al. Life (1976) 127: Now as she danced to the beat of the band, / The clock struck one, and the shit began. | |
| Deep Down In The Jungle 149: Then the monkey’s wife started her shit, / ‘See that, monkey, that’s what you git / Going around signifying and shit’. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 114: He even had a Chinese girl hustling for him, and that was some shit that nobody else in Harlem had ever done. | |
| Howard Street 16: You musta thought I was a real lame, pullin’ some cold shit like this. | |
| My Main Mother 148: That job shit you talking don’t make no sense. | |
| Shaft 104: There was all this pot and pill shit goin’. | |
| Jones Men 5: I got plenty big shit behind me. | |
| Inner City Hoodlum 137: This is the shit the Duke laid down. | |
| Stand (1990) 376: If you were going to have classical shit, you ought to go the whole hog and have your Beethoven. | |
| IV Dress Gray (1979) 300: Isn’t that some shit? | |
| Brown’s Requiem 158: He’s into a lot of shit, gambling, bookmaking, all that. | |
| Skin Tight 39: Don’t bring up that shit, hear? | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 311: My shit wouldn’t appear to be so ragged. | |
| Source Oct. 188: That shit was ugly. | |
| Source Aug. 32: Man, shit ain’t the same no mo. | |
| Turning Angel 234: This is real life, Penn. Forget that TV shit. | |
| Tampa Bay Times (St Petersburg, FL) 14 Oct. 2B/4: ‘I take over the world when I’m on my Donald trump s— . Look at all this money, ain’t that some s— ?’. | |
| Squeeze Me 100: ‘I don’ know shit about shit’. |
(j) in abstract use, one’s possessions, one’s actions, one’s life.
| ‘Sugar Hill’ in et al. Life (1976) 94: But still I packed my shit that night to make my getaway. | |
| Memphis-Nam-Sweden 181: Her Indian bag fell off her shoulder and all its shit spilled across the floor. | |
| Jones Men 139: Plus my shit was gettin’ together too. | |
| Airtight Willie and Me 79: Nothing like a blond white bitch with movie star looks [...] to drool that punk and chill the shit of that nigger bitch you done blowed. | |
| Nam (1982) 115: The shrapnel was on the surface, not embedded all the way back in my brain. It still fucked my shit up. | |
| Streets Above Us (1991) 46: Only thing is some got their shit under control more than others. | |
| 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 151: If you wanna hang with us, you better be down for your shit. | |
| (con. 1986) Sweet Forever 273: Someone [...] evened the odds when they blew up Chink and Jumbo’s shit. | |
| Westsiders 70: Damn, thinks Khop. He wants his shit tight. | |
| (con. 1998–2000) You Got Nothing Coming 74: All I’m sayin’ to you is that when some motherfucking two-ton toad gets up in your face, starts [...] playing you, you’re gonna want some righteous woods to stand up for you. Some good old dawgs to fuck that toad’s shit up. |
4. in senses of communication.
(a) nonsense, rubbish, lies, prevarications; often in talk shit
| [ | | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 15 Apr. 2/1: Come off,, Shepherd. You mustn't really now — throw guano around in that way]. |
| letter 24 Oct. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 264: That terrible shit about the nobility of any gent belonging to another race than our own (whatever it is) was worth checking. | |
| letter 4 June in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 414: If you want any blurbs from big shots and sportsmen to satisfy your owners that they are not buying shit with their nickels can get them for you. | |
| Roofs of Paris (1983) 64: For all I know it may be just so much shit. | |
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 181: I served long enough to know enough not to be snowed with this Old Army shit. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Lonely Londoners 26: It ain’t have no s— over here like ‘both of we is Trinidadians and we must help out one another’. | |
| Owning Up (1974) 141: Ian usually finished up by accusing me of talking a load of liberal humanist shit. | |
| Friends of Eddie Coyle 7: So no more of that shit. | |
| Breaking Out 126: They’d be bad-eyeing us and we’d be slinging shit at them. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 166: I gave the information officer I spoke to a line of shit. | |
| Real Thing 10: It’s not a load of shit either [...] we got it straight from the armed hold-up boys. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 297: It don’t make sense to name the child no African shit! | |
| Crosskill [ebook] She handed him a lot of shit about the hours he worked. | |
| Yes We Have No 340: Any bugger that tries that Nazi shit with me, I’ll hand him his balls on a platter. | |
| Guardian Editor 28 Jan. 10: That shit has got to stop. Where if you’re intelligent [...] and you go to school, then you’re considerd a wannabe white. That’s just some ignorant shit. | |
| (con. 1990s) in One of the Guys 131: ‘“You’re a Slob? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ shit to me?” Pow, pow!’. | |
| Snitch Jacket 23: You could see the unbroken mural of tattoos running from the top of each shoulder [...] The usual ex-con shit: snakes, screaming skulls, naked sluts [etc.]. | |
| Life 8: The way they reacted to our looks [...] ‘Hello, darling’, and all that shit. | |
| August Snow [ebook] ‘I was one of the few people that took little to none of her shit’. | |
| Price You Pay 5: I have no idea the sad shit that has happened. | |
| Widespread Panic 3: All that religious shit I disdained and disobeyed. | |
| Stoning 278: ‘Christ [...] Too old for this shit’. | |
| Hitmen 226: ‘The Old Bill, watching to see who you’re meeting [...] all that shit’. |
(b) influence.
| You Flash Bastard 147: ‘Can’t do anything for you, pal,’ he said to Unger, ‘I’m just a guest here. I don’t pull no shit.’. |
(c) (negative) information.
| Crack War (1991) 35: We good good shit on the Cat. | |
| Stormy Weather 166: You’ve got shit on me, I’ve got shit on you, and we’ve both got plenty of shit on Snapper. | |
| Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] ‘The thing is he’s got a bit of shit on Price and the rest of us that could go down rather nastily’. | |
| ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 275: Maybe Danny G. had shit on Linus Lauter, maybe he didn’t —. | |
| Price You Pay 110: Likely Tucker’s breaking bread with the Seven Demons right now giving them all my shit he can. |
5. with ref. to drugs.
(a) (also shite) heroin, occas. morphine.
| (con. 1948) Flee the Angry Strangers 250: I tell him he can take his shit’n push it hisself. | |
| Sheeper 111: ‘You’re sure you don’t want a taste?’ he says, drawing the junk up into his dropper. ‘You’re sure now? It’s good shit.’. | |
| Dog Soldiers (1976) 12: ‘Now let’s see if it’s really shit,’ he said sniffing at it. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘Whitey’ in Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1998) 214: It wasn’t the greatest shit we’d ever had but it got us straight. | |
| Big Huey 12: It’s [i.e. morphine] really good shit, man. Pharmaceutical. | |
| Official Dancehall Dict. 47: Shit general term for illegal drugs (marijuana not included): u. a coulda use some shit/I need a fix. | |
| The Joy (2015) [ebook] [W]hen you’re strung out you don’t look beyond getting the shite into you anyway. | |
| Source Oct. 152: ‘Go get my shit,’ Prince pleaded with Killah. ‘Go get my shit!’. | |
| Get Your Cock Out 4: He boiled up his morning shot and dug the spike into his eye. It was the only place left he could still get the shit into his body. | |
| (con. 1962) Stark 19: I could nail him with enough shit to put him away for twenty years. | |
| Life 297: Now I’m on the morphine [...] So, first things first, I need some shit. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 10 July 🌐 ‘I recall Neil (Armfield) saying, “Oh Jack, I’d like to see you performing without any of that shit in your system”’. | |
| Cherry 234: The heroin was super-stepped-on. I said, “No offense, Gary, but this shit is kind of some garbage. | |
| Riker’s 275: I was so drug addicted. I couldn’t get off that shit. |
(b) cannabis.
| Neurotica Autumn 45: Senor, this shit is the end. | |
| in Encounter n.d. in Norman’s London (1969) 63: A conversation between a hop head (cocaine or morphine addict) and a shit smoker (marijuana addict) goes a bit like this. We will call them the junky and the viper. | |
| Essential Lenny Bruce 147: The reason I don’t smoke shit is that it’s a hallucinatory high. | |
| Oz 8 2: We got him so stoned on his own shit. | |
| Animal Factory 44: He sucked on the joint, muttering ‘dynamite shit’ inanely. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 171: Me an’ some brothers gon’ [...] score a righteous brick o’ shit. | |
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 24: A maryjane haze – four years later the shit still smelled good. | |
| Hip-Hop Connection Jan./Feb. 27: That shit burns. Oh man son, that shit is so hard. It done make my ears numb son. | |
| ‘Killing Peacocks’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I was just wondering if you want to buy some weed [...] It’s good shit. | |
| The Force [ebook] It’s primo shit [...] A sweet, mellow high. | |
| California Bear 13: This shit is wasted on teenagers! They don’t have fully formed minds, so what’s there to expand? |
(c) (also shite) any form of drug.
| letter 10 May in Charters I (1995) 348: The bed was a straw pallet on crisscross sticks [...] under which Saint Junkey kept his fixings and shit. | |
| letter 13 Sept. in Charters II (1999) 134: I’m genuinely actually no shit afraid of walking down North Beach and all of a sudden some old buddy rushes up with pockets loaded with shit and the cops swoop in. | |
| How to Talk Dirty 133: [of methedrine] The shit, sir, if you’re referring to the products of Parke Davis, is scattered on my dresser. | |
| We are the People Our Parents Warned Us Against 51: Too many dishonest, crooked bad-shit peddlers. | |
| Snowblind (1978) 41: Coming down from the shit he was on was like getting hit by the bends. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 237: I told him to let the bummer roll and buy himself a bag of good shit. | |
| Big Huey 253: Shit (n) Drugs. | |
| Cat’s Eye (1989) 357: ‘What shit have they got you on?’ I say. ‘Some sort of tranquilizers,’ she says. | |
| Dark Spectre (1996) 26: Vince said he knew the dealer, though, and it was bound to be good shit whatever it was. | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 35: shit n. Drugs. | |
| ‘Drug Ballad’ 🎵 If I could take it all back now, I wouldn’t / I would have did more shit that people said that I shouldn’t. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 164/2: shit n. any item, but most frequently applied to drugs: ‘Pass that shit over here before the screws catch you. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 28: I bring the shite in. Almost immediately I move it on to the boys that make the real money. | |
| Razorblade Tears 166: ‘I know you run shit’. |
(d) cocaine; crack cocaine.
| Carlito’s Way 54: This coke is special shit from [...] Bolivia. | |
| (con. 1982–6) Cocaine Kids (1990) 22: Blacks have proved they can organize and sell the shit, but the Indians don’t know how to deal with the Black cats. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 367: Greg is fucked up on that shit. He hittin’ that pipe almost every day. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 59: Y’all keep that shit [i.e. cocaine] down back there. | |
| Bad Guys 23: She was a crack monster [...] skinny neck they get smoking that shit. | |
| Layer Cake 9: I wouldn’t touch that shit, it’s fuckin poison. | |
| Turning Angel 344: It’s better than that Columbian shit. | |
| ‘How We Come Undone’ in C. Rhatigan and N. Bird (eds) Pulp Ink 2 [ebook] Maybe those fuckers at the crack house had sold her some shit. | |
| Glorious Heresies 301: ‘You don’t deal anymore?’ [...] ‘Just what I said, girl. I don’t carry shit around with me’. |
(e) methamphetamine.
| Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] I’m lookin’ for some shit, if you know what I mean [...] Some crank. |
6. (US) money.
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 189: ‘Shine, Shine, you save poor me,’ say, ‘I’ll make you as rich as any black man can be.’ / Shine says, ‘Your money’s good, it’s good as gold, / but there’s other shit on the other shore.’. | |
| (con. 1968) Reckoning for Kings (1989) 289: We must’a collected twenty or thirty grand’s worth of shit. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 439: ‘I figure you got plenty of shit for Tiger South and your Cuban run.’ ‘How much?’ ‘Thirty-five, which is a yard-sale fucking price.’. |
7. as a general negative intensifier, e.g. would I shit! did she shit!
| Yes We have No 224: Did it get me any work? Did it shit? |
8. in Und. or prison uses.
(a) (US Und.) gunfire.
| If I Die in a Combat Zone (1980) 14: ‘I’d guess someone is hurt. That was a lot of shit.’ [...] ‘Why don’t they stop shooting?’ I said. |
(b) (US Und.) any form of weapon.
| Die, Nigger Die! 83: ‘Lemme see what you got in that bag.’ ‘I said, [...] ‘I had my shit in the bag and I wasn’t for letting the mothafucka see it. | |
| Blueschild Baby 25: ‘You got a knife on you Georgie?’ ‘No.’ ‘I ain’t got my shit with me either’. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 106: A gun (piece, roscoe, my shit). | |
| Prison Sl. 88: Shit Any weapon. | |
| ‘Big Ego’s’ 🎵 I roll wit my shit off safety – for niggaz that been hatin me lately / and the bitches that wanna break me. | |
| Can’t Be Satisfied 199: [Otis] Spann says, ‘Lucille, let me see my shit, baby.’ And she hands him his pistol. |
(c) (US) a criminal.
| Close Pursuit (1988) 41: The way the straights and the shits were mixed up over there, no sensible citizen would freely give a cop good information with all sorts of criminal elements [...] memorizing faces. |
(d) (Aus. prison) prison food.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Shit. 1. Food. |
(e) (Aus. prison) tobacco.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Shit. 3. Tobacco. |
(f) (US prison) violence; a prison riot.
| (con. 1998–2000) You Got Nothing Coming 50: They try to pull this lock-down shit in Kansas and the shit would’ve jumped off big-time. |
(g) (US prison) HIV or AIDS.
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Shit: HIV / AIDS. As in ‘She’s got the shit, be careful about letting her use your rig!’. | |
| POZ Jan. 🌐 Then a friend told her shed heard that Derrick had ‘the shit’ street slang for HIV. |
In derivatives
fouled with excrement.
| ‘Is It B Flat or B Sharp?’ in Rummy Cove’s Delight in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 101: I do not know a whit / Of B flat, or B sharp, koind zirs, but I am all B—s—t. |
(Scot./US) a repellent individual.
| April Dead 170: ‘He still a dodgy wee shitebag?’ ‘Yep. He’s a prick all right’. | |
| Back to the Dirt 164: ‘The hell did you do to piss this shitbag off?’. |
(Aus.) loathsome, repellent.
| Scrublands [ebook] ‘Yeah, you’ve captured the Scrublands all right. Note perfect. [...] Truly shitful, isn’t it?’. |
1. (US black) weak, cowardly, ‘gutless’.
| Die, Nigger Die! 77: But the people from the downtown program began to infiltrate it and tried to disrupt it, by talking about, ‘Let's not have a union; let's have an association.’ That was shitless. It didn’t have any force. |
2. see separate entry.
terrified.
| Curvy Lovebox 120: Numma Eleven’s too shitted to move. | |
| Crumple Zone 131: The whole class stared, arse-lickers, swots, tearaways, braggers, bullies, victims, all wide-eyed, fascinated, shitted too. |
(US) a very out-of-the-way, rural place.
| Maledicta 1 Summer 13: A backwoodsman or hick comes from OwI-Shit Junction, or plainly from Shitville. |
In compounds
(Aus.) an insignificant (and unpleasant) young person.
| Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] We were two little shit teenagers from Brisbane with no parental supervision. |
a general term of abuse; also as adj.
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 103: The bunsellers or cake-makers [...] did injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling gabblers, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters. | |
| Pagan Prince 29: The Arragonian Bakers [...] gave them ill Language, calling them Tooth-Gapers, Sherks, Shittabeds, Slubberdegullions . |
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
1. the stomach; thus shitbags, the guts.
| Sl. and Its Analogues VI 181: shitbag = the belly: in pl. = the guts. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘The Shearer’s Lament’ in Snatches and Lays 72: The skin on her gut was rotten; / I cursed and swore as her shitbag tore / And reached for my needle and cotton. |
2. (also shitbags, shite-bag) a general pej. term, whether of people or things; occas. attrib.
| Mint (1955) 121: Give the ignorant shit-bag a fucking great gob of your toffology. | |
| ‘Horseferry Road’ Kiss Me Goodnight, Sgt.-Major (1973) 114: Fuck you! I just came from the trenches in France, / Where [...] brave men were dying for shit-bags like you. | |
| Time Remembered (1985) 52: Get out of the bleeding way you shitbag! | |
| Start in Life (1979) 128: ‘Don’t you feel a bit of a shitbag though,’ I said, ‘not doing a hard day’s work?’. | |
| (con. mid-1960s) Glasgow Gang Observed 136: Dave Malloy, who was ‘huckled’ while still screaming full-throated challenges in the middle of the street to the ‘fuckin’ shit-bags’ to stand and fight. | |
| 1985 (1980) 154: Fuck you, shitbag. | |
| You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 220: You know what I want shitbags. And you know what I’ve got. | |
| Midnight Examiner (1990) 41: Eat your socks, you shitbag! | |
| Rivethead (1992) 138: Listen, shitbag, I’ll have you know I was married in my marine dress outfit! | |
| Van (1998) 547: Tha’ sort o’ thing is wasted on shite-bags like them, said Jimmy Sr. | |
| Between the Devlin 9: ‘[L]ook at the mug they’ve shoved in as premier since shitbags bailed out’. | |
| (con. 1964-65) Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 120: ‘Billy Thorpe and the fuckin’ shitbags. I don’t care what it’s called’. | |
| (con. 1950s) Slab Boys [film script] 76: Whit aboot you bein’ a devious wee shitebag an’ yur maw should’ve strangled you at birth? | |
| Observer Mag. 7 Nov. 22: It’s a shit-bag teen horror film with nothing horrifying about it. | |
| Vatican Bloodbath 17: If I had a groat for every time some smooth talkin’ shitebag’s said that. | |
| Crooked Little Vein 152: You and your father are shitbags of quite epic proportions. | |
| Running the Books 343: That’s what it was: a good guy officer versus a shitbag. | |
| Decent Ride 345: He drinks the fear in Kelvin’s eyes. He is fronting it, but knows that Kelvin is too much of a shitebag to discern the difference. | |
| Cherry 134: Cheetah was a shitbag. He was big into Faces of Death and what was almost certainly child pornography. | |
| in Guardian 22 Apr. 🌐 ‘I will just have to do the work to prove I wasn’t such a shitbag after all’. |
3. attrib. use of sense 2.
| ‘The Target’ Wire ep. 1 [TV script] Why the fuck’re you talking to some shitbag judge?? | |
| Marching With the Devil 232: ‘I hate this shitbag outfit and I want to get the fuck out!’. |
4. (US black/teen) a colostomy bag.
| Do or Die (1992) 145: You shoot ’em in the stomach [...] Have to wear a shitbag for the rest of they life. |
(US) a general term of abuse.
| Pimp 157: Ain’t the little shitball I chased outta the ‘Roost’. | |
| Whitey 90: T’little shitballs leaning out o’ they cockpits. | |
| Bonfire of the Vanities 361: This little shitball runs out in the street blowing his whistle and waving his arms. | |
| Way Past Cool 282: Get that little shitball out here. | |
| Observer Mag. 7 Nov. 20: Well, after you throw that shit ball at me, I don’t know if it’s disingenuous or not. |
(US) an unpleasant type/example.
| Hard Bounce [ebook] It was one part my shitballs of an afternoon. |
see separate entries.
1. (Aus. prison) a portable latrine.
| (con. 1940s) Andy 61: You want to take a look at those new shit-boxes of yours. |
2. a run-down vehicle.
| Walk in the City 226: ‘What a shitbox this is ,’ Terry complained. ‘Ah don’ like no little car. People see me an’ think ah ain’ hustlin’ no mo’ ’. | |
| in Amer. Dreams (1982) 177: We didn’t have shit boxes like they had in the movie. | |
| Patriot Game (1985) 221: What’re you doing driving this shitbox, and why’re you tailing me? | |
| Buddy Boys 165: Meanwhile we were driving around a shitbox car that was falling apart. | |
| ‘Home Rooms’ Wire ser. 4 ep. 3 [TV script] The guy drives a shit-box. | |
| Lush Life 9: Anything else in there? Tell us now or we’ll rip that shitbox to shreds . | |
| Thrill City [ebook] Chloe’s shitbox Crown Victoria was parked in the lot. | |
| Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] They had to get Telly’s car [...] They finally pulled up behind Telly’s shitbox. | |
| Base Nature [ebook] ‘Park your little shit-box of a car out of sight’. | |
| (con. 1991-94) City of Margins 217: Antonina stands and goes over to get the keys to the little shitbox Camry. |
3. attrib. use of sense 2.
| Shame the Devil 278: The cheap cassette player in the dash of his shitbox truck. | |
| Dreamcatcher 617: The little red shitbox car was gone. | |
| Bangs 178: [A] shit-box metallic-green Chevrolet Impala. |
4. a dilapidated or dirty dwelling.
| Goodoo Goodoo 18: Les was just about stone broke [...] and living in a shitbox at Bondi Junction. | |
| Campus Sl. Apr. 6: shitbox – anything dilapidated, of poor quality: Your house is a real shitbox. | |
| Donnybrook [ebook] [S]tubbed-out butts ashed across the top of a scuffed dresser [...] What a fucking shit box’. | |
| Zero at the Bone [ebook] Cleaning and polishing her shitbox just to feel some small sense of achievement. |
5. (Aus.) used as an insult.
| (con. 1943) Irish Fandango [ebook] ‘Thanks for nothing, shitbox’. |
see shitcanned adj.
see separate entries.
(US) a general term of abuse.
| ‘Boys of Summer’ Wire ser. 4 ep. 1 [TV script] Fuck yourself in the forty, shit-breath. |
a general term of abuse.
| Virgil Travestie (1725) 47: With a Bow the Shit-breech Elfe Would shoot like Robin-Hood himself. | |
| Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 218: A scurvy shit-breech Lad. |
1. (S.Afr.) the Special Branch [abbrev.].
| Window on Soweto 73: The shit buckets (meaning the Special Branch) banned me. |
2. (US) a highly unpleasant situation.
| August Snow [ebook] This was the shit bucket Danbury had alluded to at Schmear’s Deli. The mess he didn’t want any lawyer—defense or prosecution—poking around in. |
see shitbird n.2
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
a nightsoil cart; a refuse lorry; also attrib.
| Mint (1955) 69: Just our luck to have clicked ‘shit-cart’ on a Monday. | |
| Hero of Too 324: Now I’m talking,’ He took a deep breath. ‘The shit-cart director [...] I even love your rotten dunnies.’. | |
| Observer 7 Aug. 43/3: The desire for atonement by apprenticeship to filth, emptying shit-carts and suffering the air force’s bullshit. | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] I imagined being a shit-cart driver and decided it wouldn’t be quite as bad as waitressing or retail. |
(Aus.) knickerbockers, any form of notably baggy trousers.
| Educ. Young Donald 96: Knickerbockers, known among boys as ‘poop catchers’ or ‘shit catchers’ [AND]. | |
| Decades of Duntroon Bastard 33: ‘Shit-catchers’ was the colloquial name for knickerbocker trousers, then commonly worn by teenage boys in Sydney [AND]. | |
| Clearing Season 194: The jeans were so baggy they looked like shit-catchers. | |
| (con. 1950s) Hellfire & Herring 111: Heads down, we stared in passing at his plus-fours, the shit-catchers, which all the fishermen said they wouldn't be seen dead in. | |
| Night Tony Shot the Lights Out 347: He was wearing a fancy striped shirt and those drape pants, shit catchers I think they call them. |
1. the anus.
| Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1972) I 156: The hand-gesture is still very much alive [...] often accompanied with the spoken catchphrases [...] ‘Up your ass!’ ‘Up your gig!’ ‘Up your poop-a-doop!’ ‘Up your fur-lined shit-shoot!’ and the like. | |
| Flesh and Blood (1978) 53: It’d fill your shit chute, man! [Ibid.] 201: Up your shit chute, cocksucker. | |
| Alice in La-La Land (1999) 168: You sure she’s a girl and not some shit-chute poke acting fly? | |
| Nubile Treat 🌐 Ned reached forward and cupped his mother’s tits while pistoning her shit chute with his whanger. | |
| Viva La Madness 45: They beg ya to give it to’em up the shitshoot, they plead with ya. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 69: This gig is fucked [...] Big Freddy O. takes it up the shit chute. |
2. a disgusting, filthy place.
| ‘The Trouble I Cause’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 186: Sixty sunken-faced sub-felons sunk in a subterranean shit chute. |
(US black) a derog. term applied to a light-skinned black person who tries to pass as white.
| (con. 1920s–30s) Youngblood (1956) 182: Now ain’t that a bitch? If anybody think they white, it’s you, you half-white shit-colored bastard. |
see separate entry.
(UK black) a general term of abuse.
| Deadmeat 25: There was the little shit-cunt smoking a cigarette. | |
| Class Act [ebook] Someone had graffitied ‘shitcunts’ across the wired windows. |
(orig. milit.) any unpleasant or dirty task.
| Last Detail 17: Working a shit detail there. | |
| Digger’s Game (1981) 33: I’m on the shit detail. | |
| (con. 1969) Dispatches 64: One last shell came in, landing in the middle of a pile of full body bags, making a mess that no one wanted to clean up, ‘a real shit detail’. | |
| (con. 1964–73) Bloods (1985) 55: The second lieutenant [...] he was dumb, because he would volunteer us for all kinds of shit details to get brownie points. | |
| (con. c.1970) Phantom Blooper 193: The grunt has a flesh-colored plastic leg. He’s pulling a shit detail, policing up cigarette butts. | |
| Crack War (1991) 20: The Inwood Post was generally regarded as a shit detail. | |
| ‘Old Cases’ Wire ser. 1 ep. 4 [TV script] ‘Herc, you need to be on top of the roof’ [...] ‘Again I get the shit detail?’. |
(N.Z. prison) a male homosexual.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 164/2: shit digger (also shit pusher) n. a homosexual. |
1. (Can.) a trouble-maker.
| Ottawa Citizen 14 Nov. 5/3: ‘We were to be “shit-disturbers”.’ Those who suggested conventional approaches were told to get out of the CYC. | |
| Ottowa Jrnl 30 Oct. 1/6: It was in the Kingston penitentiary where he admited he was a [...] shit disturber. | |
| Nanaimo Dly News (B.C.) 20 Feb. 4/4: She’ s a little princess and she’s a shit disturber. | |
| Nanaimo Dly News (B.C.) 16 Mar. 4/2: ‘Every one who was in the car [...] were bad asses, little shit disturbers’. |
2. a malicious gossip.
| on Urban Dict. 🌐 shit disturber A person who because of their very nature, insults random people, picks fights, and likes to stir up trouble. look at that dude in a fight again.... what a little shit disturber. | |
| Guardian 9 Oct. 🌐 The manifesto at the back of the bi-monthly explains who is behind the publication: ‘We are a loose global network of artists, writers, environmentalists, ecological economists, media-literacy teachers, reborn lefties, ecofeminists, downshifters, high-school shit-disturbers, campus rabble-rousers, incorrigibles, malcontents and green entrepreneurs’. |
a derog. term of insult for a man.
| Swollen Red Sun 126: ‘Wake up, you shit dog’. |
see separate entries.
see separate entry.
(US) a contemptuous glance or act of staring; a ‘dirty look’.
| On the Bro’d 182: [S]he was still a bitch, a total bitch, and gave me the shit-eye. |
see separate entries.
(US) the buttocks.
| Stand (1990) 740: I might just pull the trigger [...] Blow your shit-factory all to hell and gone. |
(Aus.) a unpleasant, worthless place.
| Pushed from the Wings (1989) 72: After FEWS that shit-farm called Bowen wil be closed down. |
(N.Z.) an unattractive person.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
1. chaos; a chaotic situation.
| ‘The Republic Starts to Flag’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] What a shitfight this is turning into already. | |
| (con. 1964-65) Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 96: ‘He wants Billy on stage with us [...] Let’s not make it a shit fight for him’. | |
| Mystery Bay Blues 15: It was fast turning into a complete shitfight of voyeurs, rescuers and milling scuba divers. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] A case I’d gotten involved with degerated into an absolute shit-fight when the lawyer who’d hired me ended up trying to kill me. |
2. a bitterly contested struggle, e.g. a sporting encounter.
| Indep. Sport 15 Nov. 7: It will be the biggest shit-fight you’ve ever seen. | |
| Drawing Dead [ebook] He should of just given me the photos, could have avoided the entire shitfight, bet he was wishing to God he had. |
see separate entries.
(US) an emotional outburst.
| Never So Few (1958) 168: That pilot really had a shit fit over the length of the field. | |
| Union Dues (1978) 47: Coach has been having shitfits. | |
| Christine 45: I can’t take it home like this, Dennis, my dad and mom would have a shit fit! | |
| Paco’s Story (1987) 22: The captain’d call me over and have a shit fit reading me the riot act, complete with bugged eyes and bloody foam at the mouth. | |
| Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 shitfit (compound noun) any kind of a small fit. | |
| April Dead 125: ‘I better go back [...] Susan’ll be having a shit fit’. |
see separate entries.
(US) a general insult, usu. characterizing Donald Trump.
| alt.music.tragically-hip 21 Mar. 🌐 Good luck and goodbye to the most sick-making, hypocritical bunch of shitgibbons i’ve yet encountered on the Web! | |
| Twitter 30 Nov. 🌐 Flicking through tv channels thinking to myself ‘cunt, wanker, oxygen thief, slag, orange twat, smug tosser, unfunny shitgibbon’. | |
| Twitter 24 June 🌐 Scotland voted to stay & plan on a second referendum, you tiny fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret wearing shitgibbon. | |
| Twitter 7 Feb. 🌐 Hey @realDonaldTrump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Why don't you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced, shit-gibbon! |
see separate entries.
1. a dirty, unpleasant, disgusting place or object.
| Horseman, Pass By (1997) 55: His cousin thought Thalia was a shitheap of a town. | |
| et al. CUSS 193: Shit-heap A messy room. | |
| Guardian 16 Sept. 8/3: I’m right in the middle of this shit heap. | |
| Stand (1990) 1357: ‘Isn’t the car pointing the wrong way?’ ‘Right now it is. But if we can get this shitheap running, we’ll fix that. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 12 Dec. 3/6: He is paying [...] $400 a week for a house in Canberra, which he has described [...] as a ‘shitheap’. | |
| Skin Tight 114: We got one of those shitheaps in a fire the other night. | |
| Salesman 91: There wouldn’t be the power in that shit-heap to power yer mott’s dildo. | |
| Observer 23 Jan. 113/2: This shit-heap of a cuntry. | |
| Drawing Dead [ebook] This hotel is a shitheap, Jack [...] I wanna to get outta here. | |
| Class Act [ebook] ‘Taking your shitheap of a motor had nothing to do with it’. |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
| A Steady Rain I ii: This shitheap tenement where she lived. | |
| Snitch Jacket 52: The repo men yanked my shitheap Datsun a few years ago. | |
| Camden New Journal 24 Jan. 2: Commons hears plight of ‘shit-heap’ homes tenants. |
3. a contemptible person.
| Stand (1990) 980: Someone clapped him on the back [...] and he thought: Someday you’re going to lose your hand for that, shitheap. | |
| Salesman 164: Ronnie, you crawling Cork shit-heap. | |
| Slim & None 9: ‘You’re a disgusting fuckhead,’ Cheryl said [...] ‘You shit-heap!’. |
4. a state of emotional unease; a problematic situation.
| Glorious Heresies 110: [T]he cruelty of his progeny was what had left him in this shitheap. |
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
1. a foolish, clumsy person.
| ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 66: shithookn Person who does silly or foolish things (usually playful). |
2. an unpleasant, aggressive individual.
| et al. CUSS. | |
| Rude Behavior 37: ‘Sugar, you shouldn’t make sport of them people. That’s the backbone of America you’re talking about.’ ‘You could fool me,’ Tracy said. A lot of shithooks is all I ever saw’ . |
(US campus) the hands.
| Blueschild Baby 54: Legs splayed, hands on hips, she telling this police, ‘Motherfucker get your shit hooks off me’. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 194: fingernails [...] shithooks. |
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
a sodomite.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
(US black) an outside lavatory.
| ‘Day of the Alligator’ in Algren Lonesome Monsters (1963) 131: I could make this standing on my head in the shit-jacket. | |
| Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
see separate entries.
(N.Z. prison) a sycophant, a toady; an informer.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 165/1: shitlicker n. an inmate who ingratiates by calculated subservience, esp. applied to an informer. |
(US) a term of abuse, applied to homosexuals.
| Scruples 296: Serves him right, the shit-licking murderer—who’ll suck his cock now? |
a list of people one considers distasteful, untrustworthy and otherwise unacceptable; similarly extended to places.
| ‘Army Lang.’ in AS XX:4 Dec. 262: Shit list, [...] a list of men one dislikes and is anxious to see embarrassed or inconvenienced. | |
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 43: Then I would of been on Dynamite’s good list instead of on his shitlist. If only I’d of listened to my dear sainted mother. | |
| Round the Clock at Volari’s 46: ‘I’m starving. the Hall ain’t what it used to be. I’m on the crap list, I guess. Never get a jingle’. | |
| Guntz 217: If you don’t speak to them they put you on their shit list. | |
| Return of the Hood 48: You’re on everybody’s ‘S’ list. | |
| Among Thieves 214: That’s all Delft has to hear, and ker-boom, you’re on his shit list. | |
| Ladies’ Man (1985) 73: Things like that got people on my shit list fast. | |
| Close Pursuit (1988) 53: Los Hermanos Supermarket is on the SNU shit list for coke and smack dealings. | |
| Six Out Seven (1994) 120: Now, what put Twinkies on your shit-list, boy? | |
| Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] I’m, still driving around in the fucken rain [...] number eight on the new Commissioner’s Top Ten shit list. | |
| Stalker (2001) 95: What’d you do to get on his shit list? | |
| Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 29 Dec. 🌐 Who made your shit list in 2K9? | |
| Word Is Bone [ebook] He was listening to the snarls and yelps of the dogfight, consulting that old shitlist or hitlist or whatever he kept in his head. |
see separate entries.
(N.Z. prison) dreadlocks.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 165/1: shitlocks n. dreadlocks. |
(US) a term of abuse.
| Hell’s Angels (1967) 243: Don’t fuck with me you sons of shitlovers. |
1. (Aus. prison) an unimportant person.
| Chocolate Frog (1973) 43: tosser: We’ve seen more’n you’ll ever lamp...shitman! | |
| Doing Time app. C 208: I don’t think all prison officers are - to use prison vernacular, ‘shitmen’. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Shitman. A nonentity. | |
| Neddy (1998) 253: [The policeman] is not a friend of mine. I hate the shitman. [Ibid.] 286: Now grab those other shitmen and get out of here. | |
| Shore Leave 151: ‘You’re to leave, shitman’. |
2. (Aus. prison) thus, an assistant, one who is low(er) in the hierarchy.
| Zimmer’s Essay 56: In nearly every prison in New South Wales, every shit man is a coon. | |
| Neddy (1998) 18: Harold had two stripes on his jacket and I was the shitman: I had only one stripe. |
3. (Aus.) one who gossips maliciously.
| Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 9: He did not want to lob into any of the pubs where the stiffs and warbs hung out. There was enough shitmen, daggers, and pullemasides in the Western Suburbs where he lived and terrible turked. |
1. a general term of abuse.
| letter 23 June in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 17: These men are shit-pans, come-pots and toss-bottles. |
2. the anus.
| Blood Posse 28: You been up my shit-pan so many times it still hurts. |
1. (Aus./US) lavatory paper.
| Salute to the Great McCarthy 40: You and that rag of yours you print on shit-paper. | |
| Requiem for a Dream (1987) 40: Ya fuckin dog food and douche bags [...] an no smell shit paper. | |
| (con. 1968) Citadel (1989) 321: No shit-paper. Hadn’t planned on taking a dump in the middle of flag-raising. | |
| Homeboy 239: May as well use that noble charter for shitpaper. | |
| Muzukuru 193: If Smith and his army had a piece of shit paper with a Frelimo stamp on it, those guards’d let them through. |
2. (N.Z. prison) a member of the Black Power.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 165/1: shit paper n. a member of the Black Power. |
nothing.
| Powder 292: Your band may well be the hottest thing on eight legs in England, Wheezer, but, boringly, it doesn’t mean shit pie here in the States. |
1. a lavatory.
| Trainspotting 25: Ah sit as far back as ah can, withoot sliding intae the shit-pit below ays. |
2. any dirty and/or disgusting place.
| Peacekeepers 88: This place looks like a shit pen. | |
| Trainspotting 14: The wallpaper is horrific in this shite-pit ay a room. | |
| Panopticon (2013) 260: My room’s a shit pit; it reeks of vanilla, so I open my window. |
see separate entries.
(US) a struggle.
| Dreamcatcher 403: The grays are in a shitpull here. For maybe the first time in their history, they’re in an actual battle for control. |
see shit-stabber
(US) a third-rate publication.
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 226: Maybe he pulled his pud while he looked at his own goddamn shitrag, I don’t know. | |
| Widespread Panic 231: Confidential’s a shit rag and you’re a shitheel for working for it. |
(Aus.) a stockman.
| Into (Great?) Unfenced 61: How d’ you mean – a job? – Here? I’m not a shit ringer. Don’t know which end of a bull’d bite me! No, I’m a shearer [AND]. | |
| Poor Fellow my Country 403: Looks like I won’t be makin’ a shit-ringer out o’ you after all [AND]. |
see separate entry.
1. a humbling experience; ‘humble pie’.
| Current Sl. II:4 9: Shit sandwich, with every day a bite, n. A long-lasting unpleasant situation. | |
| One Police Plaza 258: Life ain’t nothing but a shit sandwich. | |
| Layer Cake 11: I can [...] go back to the Spanish cunt and eat myself a great big shit sandwich, and buy at his price. | |
| Cobra II 314: McKiernan would later tell Thurman that he ‘ate a shit sandwich’. | |
| Truth 59: All the makings of a shit sandwich. I see no joy, suffering all round. | |
| Old Scores [ebook] Whoever was on the other end of the line was being invited to eat a shit sandwich. | |
| in Spectator 29 Jan. 🌐 Having to eat a sh-t [sic] sandwich is one thing; making it yourself is quite another. |
2. (N.Z.) homosexual anal intercourse.
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 101/1: shit sandwich male homosexual act. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
see separate entry.
a night-soil collector.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
one who has trodden in excrement.
| Sl. and Its Analogues VI 181: shit-shoe (or shit-shod) = derisive to one who has bedaubed his boot. |
a disaster; chaos; a neg. assessment of any situation.
| Yearbk Eur. Convention on Human Rights 410: We don’t want this shit-show any longer. | |
| Spin Sep. 102: The bar is a complete shitshow, with a drunken banker type growling a profane version of ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.’ It only gets worse from there. | |
| Contact Charlie n.p.: ‘It’s a shit show — a complete fucking shit show,’ Dupuis grumbled. | |
| Knives at Dawn 123: ‘Shit show’ is one of Kaysen’s favorite expressions. ‘That first morning was a shit show. ... Total shit show.’. | |
| On the Bro’d 15: One shitshow after another. | |
| Guardian 13 Aug. 🌐 How many people can now keep the whole equation of Labour’s shitshow in their heads, let alone care to? | |
| Twitter 29 Jan. 🌐 There are multiple directors in this shitshow, multiple parties abusing this office for their own gain. | |
| Bloody January 27: That’s what’s known as a right royal shiteshow. A right royal shiteshow that I’m going to have to sort out. | |
| February’s Son 73: ‘C’mon. After this shitshow I need a bloody drink’. | |
| Squeeze Me 120: ‘This is a show of the shit variety’. | |
| Opal Country 57: ‘[I]t’s the next big thing. Worth more than [...] the whole shitshow put together’. | |
| Riker’s 197: That just turned into an entire shit show. | |
| To Die in June 42: Even before this morning’s shitshow, they were about as far away from that as you could get. |
see separate entries.
see mud-slinging n.
flabbergasted.
| This Is How You Lose Her 198: You think I was surprised? You should have seen my brother. He looked shitsmacked. |
a term of abuse.
| Midnight Clear 139: What if there is a bunch of shit sniffers wanting to give up. Why not? |
(US) dirty, disgusting.
| Geek Love 209: Do this shit-squirting job and then worry about that! |
a male homosexual.
| Maledicta III:2 233: Still more words of this fucking vocabulary are [...] shit-stabber. | |
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: shit stabber n. Pork swordsman. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 186: shit-puncher/stabber/stirrer Aggressive male homosexual. ANZ. | |
| Stump 210: Couplea fuckin homs. — Yeh. Chutney ferrets. — Shit stabbers. |
an act of anal intercourse, usu. in a male homosexual context.
| Trainspotting 31: I reckon that he’s been daein a bit ay mainlining or shit-stabbing on the Q.T. | |
| Get Your Cock Out 97: In instances of glamour magic the sorcerer himself had to be on the receiving end of the shitstabbing. |
(orig. US) a fool, thus a general insult.
| Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 shitstain (noun) stupid person. Somewhat stronger than calling someone a ‘shit.’. | |
| ‘Vegan Reich’ in Home Suspect Device 19: These shit-stains are [...] giving me a king-size headache with their fucking bongoes. | |
| Drawing Dead [ebook] I just called him a duplicitous shit-stain. | |
| Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘Tell this wetback shit stain to shut up’. |
(UK black) the white power structure.
| Dirty South 139: Don’t believe what the shitstem has planned for you [...] you have all the potential in the world. |
1. a contemptible person.
| in Worlde of Wordes n.p.: Cacastecchi. | |
| Dimboola (2000) 71: You old shit-stick. | |
| Because the Night 40: 1956. Scarsdale, New York. Johnny Havilland, age eleven, known as ‘Spaz,’ ‘Wimpdick,’ and ‘Shitstick.’. | |
| Squeeze Me 243: [A]rranging a painful payback for the racist shit-sticks. |
2. (US) the penis, esp. when used for anal intercourse.
| Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
3. (US) an inferior cigarette.
| ‘Bomb in the Garden’ Generation Kill ep. 7 [TV script] A cigarette factory [...] where they make these Iraqi shit-sticks. |
1. a malicious gossip, a trouble maker; a political activist, thus v. shit-stir, stir (the) shit .
| Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 105: He was [...] playing his well-known role as people’s writer and shit-stirrer extraodinary. [Ibid.] 177: All my life I’ve wanted to stir the shit of a shit-stirrer. | |
| (con. 1930s) ‘Keep Moving’ 33: We don’t want any shit-stirrers here, we’ve got enough of our own without blow-ins. Get out. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 1054/2: late C.19–20. | |
| Blow Your House Down 21: She was [...] well into her eighties, very religious – and a champion shit-stirrer. Every Christmas she’d go from one to the other, stirring like mad. | |
| Observer Mag. 7 Nov. 17: He is a kind of a shit stirrer. | |
| OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 shit-stirrer n. somone who enjoys causing trouble for others. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. | |
| Ten Storey Love Song 137: [He] tries to escape from the pissed-up shit-stirrer. | |
| (con. 1943) Irish Fandango [ebook] Jack was a shit-stirrer from way back. | |
| Boyo-wulf at https://boyowulf.home.blog 24 Sept. 🌐 Your father, God he was some shit stirrer so he was. | |
| Joey Piss Pot 236: ‘They didn’t pull it [i.e. a ‘bullshit’ arrest] without a reason, Frank. They know what they’re doing.’ ‘Stirring the shit?’. |
2. see shit-stabber
gossiping maliciously in the hope of causing trouble.
| Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 97: Come on, Tich, old mate, we’ll go and do a bit of shit-stirring among the shitties. | |
| Way Past Cool 225: Seem like to me Deek goin round shit-disturbin, what it is. | |
| Layer Cake 208: Jimmy’s getting palsy with each side and shit-stirring. | |
| Indep. Rev. 19 Apr. 1: I like shit-stirring. | |
| Blood Miracles : ‘No one’s gonna listen to your shit-stirring tall tales’. |
1. cowboy boots.
| ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 66: shitstompersn 1: Cowboy boots 2: Cowboys. |
2. cowboys.
| ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 66: shitstompersn 1: Cowboy boots 2: Cowboys. |
in pl., very tight-fitting jeans.
| ‘Beasley Street’ 🎵 When shit-stopper drains and crocodile skis / Are seen on Beasley Street. |
1. (US) a very confused or frightening situation.
| (con. 1944) Naked and Dead 62: He’s been missing all the shit storms. | |
| Animal Factory 74: See you survived the shitstorm. | |
| (con. 1968) Citadel (1989) 207: Never been in a heavier shitstorm. Grunts dying all around me. | |
| Lucky You 205: We’ve got three smitten morons and one beautiful woman. Honey, there’s an incredible shitstorm on the horizon. | |
| You Got Nothing Coming 164: The Bone knows you can never be too prepared in prison for a shitstorm. | |
| Snitch Jacket 184: They dragged me into this shitstorm balls-first. | |
| All the Colours 300: ‘It’s a fucking mess is what it is, Gerry. A shitstorm of your making’. | |
| Truth 162: Terrible shitstorm, this [...] Hear that fucking Keogh. | |
| Running the Books 237: You got every right to hand in that report [but] you’re going to have a shitstorm on your hands if you do. | |
| Old Scores [ebook] The Junkyard Dogs would want revenge for their mate. A fucking shitstorm. | |
| Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘You’re out [...] The one-man walking shitstorm’. | |
| Razorblade Tears 247: It was the physical manifestation of this whole godforsaken shitstorm. |
2. used adv. as an intensifier.
| Last Kind Words 16: It must keep him up, wondering if I was out there, going shitstorm crazy. |
see separate entry.
(US) a term of personal abuse.
| Squeeze Me 88: Such coldblooded shitsuckers deserved to be punished like murderers not just thieves. |
(US) an abusive intensifier; thus shit-sucker n.
| Geek Love 46: ‘Shitsucker’ was the pejorative. [Ibid.] 303: Moving in on the shit-sucking show. | |
| Finnegan’s Week 116: Do you understand that, you shit-sucking little prick? |
(Aus./US black) one who talks nonsense; thus shit-talk, a nonsensical anecdote.
| Straight Outta Compton 39: ‘You’re a shit-talker,’ she said. ‘A jerker.’. | |
| Adventures of the Honey Badger [ebook] No dolphins or whales were hurt during this shit-talk. |
(US juv.) a sheet of lavatory paper.
| OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 shit-tickets Toilet tissue. So-called because of the similarity between a roll of toilet paper and a perforated coil of tickets. |
(US prison) an in-cell lavatory bucket.
| Intractable [ebook] [The cell] was filthy – an acidic smell of stale sweat, mixed with the disinfectant that filtered from the shit tub when the lid was lifted. |
(US) an unpleasant person; also attrib.
| Kick in the Head 216: He said to tell you you’re a shitwad piece of crap. | |
| Smashing Doves 56: Her words kicked me in the balls. I felt like a shitwad. | |
| Nature Girl 148: Those goddam Cubans hired by Honey’s shitwad ex-husband. |
(US) a second-rate, run-down automobile.
| Grease 71: Hell’s Chariot cruised by [...] up to where Kenick had parked his shitwagon. | |
| Shame the Devil 25: ‘The Taurus is yours.’ ‘I ask for a shitwagon?’ said Farrow. | |
| Snitch Jacket 119: ‘Where are they?’ ‘S-shitwagon . . .g-glove box.’ Gus said. |
a term of abuse, of a person or an unpleasant thing.
| Dear Sir, Drop Dead 27: There is no room [...] for another shitweasel who thinks he is too good for negotiations. | |
| Lucky You 7: Find out who’s this shitweasel with the other ticket. | |
| Dreamcatcher 351: The guys in charge believe the shit-weasels are just a little too upsetting for John Q. Public. | |
| Nature Girl 18: Prosecutors depicted Van Bonneville as a philandering shitweasel. | |
| Twitter 14 Oct. 🌐 Who couldn’t want their daughter dating a man who shifts so effortlessly between being a violent psychopath and a whining shitweasel? | |
| Squeeze Me 255: ‘President Shitweasel never fails to light my fuse’. |
a non-specific term of abuse.
| Drury Lane Jrnl (1974) 20 Apr. 85: You are a great rascal. Out of my company of 150, you can’t find three but say you are a shit wig. |
unpleasant, unwanted, prob. dirty occupations.
| More Tales of the City (1984) 111: I did temporary shitwork – clerical work. | |
| Big Huey 172: Don’t try to get him to do your shit-work for you. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 353: shitwork. Menial, routine drudgery. | |
| Rivethead (1992) 49: GM paid us a tidy income and we did the shitwork. | |
| Lush Life 307: Do you think I’d be killing myself doing this shitwork [...] if it wasn’t anything more than a means to an end . | |
| Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘I know how you goombahs like it. I do your shit work, then you whack me to settle the books’. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 32: Shitwork prep first. Vibe the terrain. |
a derisory amount.
| Torregreca 304: What I think doesn’t make a shit’s worth of difference to anybody. | |
| Equal Affections 239: It doesn’t make a shit’s worth of difference to me either. | |
| www.route-online.com 🌐 I know both pursuits are primarily selfish; about my own enjoyment and that neither makes a shit’s worth of difference in the greater scheme of thing. | |
| posting at www.yelp.com 🌐 And yes, every employee is oriental and can’t speak a shit worth of English. |
Verbs pertaining to lit. or fig. uses of excrement
In phrases
to defecate.
| Beastlair.com 🌐 A bear and a rabbit were doing a shit together in the woods one day. |
see separate entry.
(US) to be killed.
| Close Quarters (1987) 331: I’m sorry he got his shit blown away in that fucking dumb-ass war. | |
| (con. 1965-66) Rumor of War 122: You take point. If you see that VC, blow his shit away’. | |
| (con. 1969–70) F.N.G. (1988) 10: You might get your shit blown backwards tomorrow. |
to make one excited.
| (con. 1975–6) Steel Toes 169: It gets my shit hard, fuckin’ people up. |
(US) to get angry with someone else.
| Paco’s Story (1987) 37: That big old fat woman, fattest woman he ever saw, who got all up in his shit because she [...] could not for the life of her get through the doorway and up the coach steps. |
to move very fast, of a person or vehicle.
| Dead Zone (1980) 305: Gonna go through them like shit through a canebreak! | |
| Urban Grimshaw 105: I had the engine bored out and it went like shit off a stick. |
(Aus./S.Afr.) to become enraged.
| Sat. Night at the Palace (1985) 13: So because I want to stuff him up, Carstens has a big shit from the bench. Says I mustn’t cause strop. |
(US) to be a coward.
| Iron Orchard (1967) 138: He’s just got a little shit in his blood. I guess he can’t help that. | |
| Maledicta 1 Summer 13: A person that you don’t like is often described in terms of various bodily parts or excretions: [...] If cowardly as well, he is a piss-willie or has shit in his blood. |
(Aus.) to be in a bad temper.
| Shiralee 163: If he was another type [...] the bad and dangerous type, he’d come over and get some of the dirt off his liver, some of his crookedness against the world; he’d look for fight and toy with the blade of a pocket-knife to back up his menace. | |
| (con. 1941) Gunner 92: Well, I wish he hadn’t written such a lousy recipe for me. He had shit on the liver the day he wrote mine. | |
| Day of the Dog 81: Judge must of ’ad shit on ’is liver that day, unna? | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. | |
| Stoning 125: ‘As my dad would say, we’ve got a lot of shit on our livers’. |
(US) to place at an extreme disadvantage.
| (con. 1969–70) F.N.G. (1988) 149: If Charlie is around here close and sees this mess [...] He’s gonna have our shit on a stick. |
1. (US campus) to act without restraint, to lose control.
| Campus Sl. Mar. 4: lose one’s shit – act shocked, out of control. | |
| Nick’s Trip 120: [W]hen ‘Blue Sky’ came on, and Dickey Betts moved into his monster guitar solo, I lost my shit. | |
| Yellow Birds 94: Sterling walked [...] spreading salt over the fields and alleys, over the dead bodies and into the dust that seemed to cover everything [...] ‘I think he’s losing his shit, Bart,’ Murphy said. | |
| Onion 19 Feb. 🌐 ‘[Y]ou wouldn’t believe the looks I got after I hit that nigger kid. Seriously, they were looking at me like I totally lost my shit’. | |
| ‘Sunset’ in Broken 200: ‘When you told him no, he lost his shit and choked you’. | |
| Braywatch 263: The girl has lost her shit and it takes a good ten minutes for me to get her calm again. |
2. (US) to collapse into uncontrollable laughter.
| Hard Bounce [ebook] We both lost our shit, and I giggled until my ribs ached. |
(US) to pick a fight (with).
| ‘Traces of a Name’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] He picked shit with me because he claimed I was targeting his tags with my throw-ups. |
1. to work, to talk etc. unsuccessfully, against the odds.
| Long Lives the King 26: ‘I reckoned Andy was pushing shit uphill,’ said Burnsie, ‘setting up that sort of a show; but I got to hand it to him... It must be worth a buck or two for him now.’ . | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 88/2: push shit uphill attempt the impossible. | |
| Sun. Star (Auckland) 22 Dec. CI: Insipid Sports Segment. TVNZ’s [...] America’s Cup..clips from Jane Dent [...] Not her fault. The lady is pushing the proverbial uphill [DNZE]. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 164: push a turd uphill with a toothpick Very hard work. push shit uphill Hard work. It becomes nigh on impossible if add with a pointed stick/a rubber fork. ANZ. | |
| Sucked In 17: ‘What would you say if I told you I’m thinking about throwing my hat into the ring?’ [...] ‘I’d say you’ll be pushing shit uphill’. |
2. (US gay) to have anal intercourse.
| Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐 anal intercourse: [...] Syn: pushin’ shit uphill. |
to terrify.
| You Flash Bastard 164: Sneed’s thoughts pursued Paul Hollick. Maybe the fact of his being followed had put the shits up him. | |
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 114: Nothin’ puts the shit up old Bacteria Bill better than a good old gargle of piss. | |
| West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 92: Let him have his scars / his medals that he flaunts to all / to put the shits up any villain. | |
| (con. 1920s) Legs 76: Watching the hijackers clobbering the bo because he wasn’t packing put the shit up my neck. | |
| Blood Posse 346: I ain’t letting no one put the shits up me. | |
| The Joy (2015) [ebook] ‘I’m gonna tell them it was you,’ I told him, just trying to put the shits up him, like. | |
| Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 10: The goy’s only trying to put the shits up us. | |
| ‘Boner McPharlin’s Moll’ in Turning (2005) 272: Fuck, I didn’t steal nothin, just drove one round on the forklift for a laugh, to put the shits up em. | |
| Gutted 7: There was a rustle in the distance. It put the shits up me. | |
| Rules of Revelation 118: ‘He’s just trying to put the shits up me, then,’ Ryan said. |
problems devolve upon the lowest member of a hierarchy.
| Life in the French Foreign Legion 42: Your sergent is responsible for ensuring that everything comes off without a hitch and you can be sure you'll hear about it if you don't do your part properly. Shit rolls downhill. | |
| Hidden Soldier 84: [T]he rifles were lost [...] because precise procedures were not followed, and that had to be somebody’s fault. And one of the things I’ve learned in life is that shit usually flows downhill. | |
| Yellow Birds 188: ‘It’s just the way it’s gotta be, kid. Someone has to answer for some of it.’ ‘Shit rolls downhill, huh, Captain?’. | |
| April Dead 12: ‘[S]hite rolls downhill. They [i.e. senior officers] shout at him, he shouts at me’. |
1. to defecate.
| Anecdota Americana I 70: He bane say, ‘go take a good shit for yourself.’. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 236: An unfortunate bugger named Cowl / Took a shit while as drunk as an owl. | |
| Thief’s Primer 90: He was sitting on the commode taking a shit. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 57: I want you to light you up a joint and take a real good shit and screw your wig on tight, / and let me tell you about the little bad motherfucker called Dolomite. | |
| Maledicta III:1+2 24: But ladies and men who are socially fit / Under no provocation will go take a shit! | |
| Tourist Season (1987) 363: They’re also planting something called a lush greenbelt, which is basically a place for rich people to let their poodles take a shit. | |
| Pulp Fiction [film script] 148: I gotta take a shit. | |
| Guardian Guide 22–28 Jan. 6: Yes, Iggy was known to actually take a shit on stage. | |
| Riker’s 22: I had to take a shit. |
2. in fig. use, to cause trouble for, to attack.
| (con. 1969) Dispatches 12: Just when you get good and comfortable is when he [i.e. the Viet Cong] comes over and takes a giant shit on you. | |
| ‘Ebb Tide’ Wire ser. 2 ep. 1 [TV script] You just sat here and watched Nat Coxon take a shit all over you. | |
| Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘You took a gigantic shit around here, you gotta split town’. |
Verbs pertaining to trouble or ill treatment
1. to be scolded or told off, to get into trouble.
| Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1964) 25: Men are getting out of bed and catching shit from their wives. | |
| Cutter and Bone (2001) 264: You look like you’ve caught enough shit in your time. | |
| Nam (1982) 164: When I changed divisions, I started catching all kinds of shit. | |
| Cat’s Eye (1989) 86: I caught some shit for that piece. | |
| Sl. U. 55: You’re going to catch shit if you miss practice. | |
| posting at wynsor.net 🌐 I’ll probably catch shit for this, but I thought it would make more sense to go back to the hotel and go to sleep, and get up early in the morning to come see Richie and then head to the festival. | |
| (con. 1973) Johnny Porno 25: Then John had caught shit at the bar [...] ‘The fuck is this?’ the punk had asked. | |
| Baltimore Sun (MD) 29 Oct. T31/1: Johns Hopkins University caught shit for such a party. |
2. to suffer physical harm.
| (con. 1969) Dispatches 119: Evans is over in Danang [...] He caught a little shit the other night. | |
| Fields of Fire (1980) 81: Deadly Delta. Yeah. They really caught the shit last night. |
(US) to give someone a difficult time, to persecute.
| Jones Men 134: I don’t know why Mitch wants to try and drop the shit on me. |
to find oneself in difficulties.
| Woman Tamer in Ballades of Old Bohemia (1980) 66: I fell in. Nine months I done I was dead innocent. [...] Blime, I fell in, a bird. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 376/2: since ca. 1870. | |
| in ‘Out Come The Freaks’ Attitude 🌐 There are people from that period who never recovered from the fact that their star fell in the shit. Get over it! |
to get into trouble.
| Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 137: And it’s only by accident that we got in the cactus this time. | |
| Lowlife (2001) 35: Back up, Boas, you’re in the crap. | |
| Digger’s Game (1981) 96: I didn’t get in the shit because I was crooked. | |
| Dinkum Aussie Dict. 16: Come up smelling of roses: To extricate one’s self from a difficult situation without getting into the shit. | |
| Old School 90: Best way not to get in the shit in this business is to provide the people that make decisions that affect you with [...] information. | |
| Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] I was in more shit than a Weribee duck. |
1. to cause trouble for someone.
| Blackstone Rangers 154: ‘They gave you shit?’ ‘They don’t know enough about what’s happening to even give you shit,’ I said . | |
| Property Of (1978) 178: Kind [...] don’t give me any shit. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 190: Fat Dog gave Hot Rod a lot of shit, and Hot Rod’s a bad man to fuck with. | |
| It (1987) 213: Don’t gimme any of your shit, you stuttering little freak. | |
| in That Was Business, This Is Personal 16: I saw [marriage] as a way of having some sort of home and roots and somebody who wouldn’t give me any shit. | |
| (con. 1986) Sweet Forever 65: Like Tutt would ever let some sawed-off little spade give him any kind of shit. | |
| Devil All the Time 5: The boy thought about what Willard had told him the other day, about standing up for yourself when someone gave you some shit. | |
| (con. 1991-94) City of Margins 74: ‘Your old man give you shit?’ ‘A little’. |
2. to nag, to criticize, to tease.
| et al. CUSS 125: Give (some) shit Tease or annoy someone. | |
| Mr Majestyk 152: ‘They’re starting to pressure me, give me some shit, tell me forget about the guy or hire it done’. | |
| Cocktail Waitress 124: They started off giving me shit about the way I took their orders. | |
| Patriot Game (1985) 40: You think you can give me a lotta goddamned shit? | |
| Clueless [film script] What’s wrong? Is Josh giving you shit because he’s going through his post-adolescent idealistic phase? | |
| Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 274: The guy didn’t want to give me my deposit back. Gave me shit about keeping it too long. | |
| Life 256: I could have given Anita shit for it, but what was the point? | |
| Hard Bounce [ebook] Legendary for laying out said customers who dared to give her an ounce of shit. | |
| Dirtbag, Massachusetts 91: We could have laughed together [...] while Jef gave me shit. |
(US black) to encounter problems.
| Jones Men 93: He got into shit when he was young. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 242: hit some shit Encounter some difficult situations or people. | |
| (con. 1970) 13th Valley (1983) 84: They hit the shit about two weeks after. | |
| (con. 1969–70) F.N.G. (1988) 40: If you’re a leg, a grunt, a peg [...] a goddam Eleven Bravo, you will hit the shit before anyone else does. |
to cause a commotion, to cause trouble.
| Grits 77: Ee goess around to-a towns in Wales, kicks up some shit, gets awey with wha ee can en legs it back ter fuckin Aber. | |
| Life 331: The Puerto Ricans got pissed off in their section of town and they were kicking up shit. |
to bring trouble to someone else.
| Praetorians (trans.) 255: He’s landed me in the shit slightly, old Glatigny, but since he’s got out of it himself. | |
| No Fatherland (trans.) 123: You’ve landed me in the shit up to my nose, Wander, and the smell’s getting on my nerves. | |
| ‘Get Daley!’ Minder [TV script] 12: You start flapping your mouth and I’ll land you right in it. | |
| ‘Marriages Are Made in Heaven’ in Heroin Annie [e-book] Blackmailers are a low breed too, and this one had put his supposed girlfriend right in the shit. | |
| Echo 312: What happens to the average wife whose husband dumps her in the shit and vanishes with all the loot? | |
| Indep. Rev. 13 July 8: Craig Brown [...] was dumped in it by none other than his aggrieved ex-girlfriend. | |
| Soho Nights 40: Convinced someone – Harry, Beth, one of the others – would let something slip and land them in the shit. | |
| Night Lawyer 90: Does he really think she’d land him in the shit? |
see under game n.
1. (Aus./US) to deride, to attack verbally.
| Current Sl. III:1 11: Put the shit on, v. To criticize severely. | |
| (con. 1960s) Whoreson 214: You would end up trying to put shit on me. | |
| Burn 74: I don’t hear her slingin’ off at you; why put shit on her? | |
| Daddy Cool (1997) 103: He was sure that the couple was putting shit on them. | |
| You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 10: If you wanted a shirt full of broken ribs [...] just go up and put a bit of shit on Les Norton. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 89/1: put a shit on to denigrate or deceive. | |
| Chopper From The Inside 15: Asians in Australia [...] will be putting shit on the ‘wogs’ and ‘coons’ as the ‘wogs’ and blacks are already putting shit on the ‘chows’ and ‘slopes’. | |
| Chopper 4 180: Yet the same Aussie kids would put shit on the Germans for what they did to the Jews. |
2. (US black) to take advantage; to trick, to deceive.
| Mr Jive-Ass Nigger 89: That bitch must be [...] thinking that she had the nigger running like a puppet on a string; but if he ever got the chance he was gonna put the shit on her, but good! | |
| see sense 1. |
(US) to cause trouble, to make a fuss.
| Same Old Grind 23: ‘The house just might buy you a drink if you don’t raise any more shit’. | |
| (con. 1998–2000) You Got Nothing Coming 56: The fucking Muslims, motherfucking sand niggers, raised so much shit about it [i.e. pork] being against their so-called religion. |
see under shovel v.
1. (US black) to initiate trouble, to start an argument.
| ‘Don’t Start No Stuff’ 🎵 Don’t you start no stuff and there won’t be no stuff / Don’t you start your bluff and you won’t be treated rough. | |
| Deep Down in the Jungle 70: There hadn’t been no disturbing in the jungle for quite a bit, / For up jumped the monkey in the tree one day and laughed, ‘I guess I'll start some shit’. | |
| Soulside 110: Wouldn’t go anywhere near her now, though, with my old lady . . . Don’t know what kind of shit that old bitch could start if they met’. | |
| Street Players 97: Start some shit and you’ll lose every goddam thing. | |
| Another Day in Paradise 37: If someone wants to start shit because we’re white, we do the best we can just to slide on out. | |
| Mr Blue 36: Start any shit in here and you’ll swear the whole world fell on you. | |
| Cherry 28: James Lightfoot was alright though. He’d remember your birthday, didn’t ever start shit. |
2. (US black) to create excitement.
| Rakim Told Me 44: ‘[T]he shows really started to get boring to me. So I was like: “All right, let me get up here and start some shit.” So I'd get up there and do what people today call a hype-man’. |
see under stir v.
see under suck v.1
(orig. US) to suffer (and accept) humiliation, annoyance or (in weak form) teasing; often as take no shit.
| Negro Youth 174: ‘If they would stick together [...] and not take so much stuff off white people, they’d treat Negroes as they have to treat them in other places’. | |
| in Derelicts of Company K (1978) 251: We don’t have to take any more shit from anybody. | |
| Really the Blues 45: That solid he-man, who took no stuff from nobody. | |
| Naked Lunch (1968) 135: I don’t hafta take any shit off any uncircumcised cocksucker. | |
| Exit 3 and Other Stories 23: I don’t take no shit from nobody. | |
| Awopbop. (1970) 156: They were self-assured, cocky, and they took no shit. | |
| Digger’s Game (1981) 9: I take so many kinds of shit I figure Howard Johnson went into the shit business. | |
| Cogan’s Trade (1975) 25: He’s not taking no shit off anybody that wants to fuck around with him. | |
| Faggots 274: How much shit are you willing to take just for the memory of a little intimacy. | |
| Nam (1982) 77: The guy must have something on the dome, because he took all the shit. | |
| A Drink Before the War 13: A woman who took shit from absolutely nobody. | |
| ‘Criminal’ 🎵 I don’t gotta say a word, I just flip em the bird / and keep goin, I don’t take shit from no one. | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] I wasn’t going to take any shit from a smarmy shit with wandering digits. | |
| Raiders 49: Steve [...] didn’t take any shit from anyone. | |
| Whiplash River [ebook] ‘That girl doesn’t take any shit’. | |
| Killing Pool 109: Billy McCartney isn’t taking any more shit from any of them. | |
| Riker’s 84: I wasn’t taking no shit from nobody [...] nothing from no officers, [...] nothing from no convict. | |
| To Die in June 226: She was a looker, all right. [...] Hard eyes though, like she took no shit. |
(US) to ge into difficulties.
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 52: The Chief was treading shit now. |
Verbs pertaining to objects or situations with negative connotations
In phrases
to feel very bad, whether emotionally or physically (cf. feel shitty under shitty adj.1 ).
| Ladies’ Man (1985) 111: He just made me feel like a pile of shit. | |
| ‘Over the Hill’ in Mooi Street (1994) 74: I’m feeling a bit shit. | |
| London Fields 26: Time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit. | |
| Vinnie Got Blown Away 142: Never said I felt sharp Rameez, said I felt shit. No more shooters OK? | |
| Skull Session 340: He felt like shit. | |
| Crumple Zone 65: When you get depressed the first thing you feel shit about is all the positive stuff. I mean everything good becomes shit. | |
| Turning (2005) 151: Raelene suddenly felt like shit. | |
| ‘Live Corn’ 🎵 ’Til these damn jakes put cuffs on my wrists / Had me locked down in Wandsworth feeling like shit. | |
| Trans 1: ‘I looked like I was supposed to,’ she reflects. Inside, she felt ‘like shit’. |
of a place and its standards, to decline severely.
| Imabelle 54: This bar has gone from sugar to shit. | |
| Rage in Harlem (1969) 55: [as 1957]. | |
| Snakes (1971) 73: That old dope, and then you dont do nothin but go from sugar to shit, if youll excuse my French. |
to decline, to collapse; to fail to work out.
| Digger’s Game (1981) 95: Who’s tending the business, we don’t all go to shit. | |
| Skin Tight 214: This town is gone to shit. | |
| Point of Origin (1999) 236: Maybe things got out of control and went to shit. | |
| Turning Angel 156: Things go to shit in a hurry, don’t they? | |
| ‘Occupy Opportunity’ in C. Rhatigan and N. Bird (eds) Pulp Ink 2 [ebook] Almost twenty years we livd like that. Until it all went to shit [...] and somebody died. | |
| Glorious Heresies 90: ‘[S]he was pretty once. I think the term is “gone to shit”’. | |
| Blood Miracles : ‘I wanted to tell you Saturday, but that just went too shit’. | |
| Stoning 280: ‘Town’s gone to shit’. |
1. of a person, to appear extremely unwell, whether through actual illness or through the effects of drink or drugs.
| Last Detail 173: You look like shit, Buddusky. | |
| Ladies’ Man (1985) 45: Kenny, you look like shit. | |
| London Fields 26: Time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit. | |
| Golden Orange (1991) 341: You look like shit! | |
| Green River Rising 234: Fuck, man, you look like shit. You nearly fat as Coley. | |
| Keepers of Truth 279: Ronny looked like shit. | |
| Skinny Dip 185: Doc, you look like shit on a dumpling. | |
| Chicago Trib. 19 May Fict-5: We both rarely leave the house and when we do we look like shit. |
2. of an object, to look in very poor condition.
| (con. 1960s) Wanderers 214: ‘It looks like shit.’ [...] ‘It’s outtasite.’. | |
| Robbers (2001) 155: It [i.e. a guitar] was old and beat up, looked like shit, but he could make it sing. | |
| Running the Books 55: Your hair looks like shit. |
3. in fig. use.
| St Louis Jewish Light (MO) 23 Mar. A23/4: We will [...] kill you and your family, but before that, we will make you look like shit in public. |
to matter, to be significant.
| Semi-Tough 35: [I]t won’t make a shit what we say about your wonderful wife and your wonderful editor. | |
| To Kill a Cop 199: ‘Sorry, pal, the price is the same, whether you come tomorrow night or not. It don’t make a shit to me’. |
(Aus.) to denigrate.
| You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 32: Bikie Number One [...] decided to poke shit at Norton’s tuxedo. | |
| ‘Kakadu’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] No wonder Australians poke shit at [Americans] all the time. | |
| Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] Les and George might have constantly bagged and poked shit at each other at work, but when it came down to business, that was all forgotten. |
(US black) to deceive, to talk nonsense.
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 56: ‘You tryna pull some shit on me, honey? Fronting like you don’t know who I am?’. |
see under suck v.1
(Aus.) to accept that one must have both bad and good experiences.
| Candy 193: Of course, we got used to taking the shit with the sugar, but it was frustrating sometimes. |
to treat in a very unpleasant manner, deservedly or not.
| Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1977) 17: The Way to Get Laid is to Treat ’Em Like Shit. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 104: Dear treats him like shit. | |
| Powder 499: Keva had treated her like shit, and he’d let him. |
Verbs pertaining to lying or deception
to gossip, to chatter.
| (con. 1980s) Skagboys 331: We’re chewing the shit, watching the passngers [...] tramping onto the boat like cattle. |
see cut the crap v.
to boast, to talk nonsense.
| (con. mid-1960s) Glasgow Gang Observed 126: The police were treated to the more full-blooded, ‘Away an’ pap shite at the moon!’, or more common still, ‘Pap shite at yersel’.’. | |
| Blood Posse 159: No need to pop that shit. | |
| ‘Amityville’ 🎵 That’s why the first motherfucker poppin some shit he gets killed (killed). |
see under shoot v.
1. (US black) to seduce, to ‘chat up’ (see chat v.1 (1)).
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 129: Then the bitch come draggin’ it home with her sickpad on, / she talkin’ shit, ‘Daddy, you sure is sweet.’. | |
| Black Players 43: An important part of ‘hitting on’ a woman is a particular style of verbal encounter called talking shit, talking that talk, or talking trash. This manner of publicly accosting a woman and attempting to interest her with a fast-talking line of patter is by no means restricted to pimps, but is a common mode of ghetto encounter. | |
| (con. 1940s) Tattoo (1977) 225: Tight as a glove. Almost a virgin before me. I really had to talk some shit, man. She cried the first time! |
2. (orig. US, also talk shit at the moon) to talk nonsense.
| Mama Black Widow 226: I’m gonna give you a fat mouth if you don’t stop [...] talking shit to me. | |
| (con. 1950s) Whoreson 155: Smoking my reefer and talking shit. | |
| Godson 371: [T]alking shit with the girls. | |
| ‘Power’ 🎵 Money controls the world and that’s it! / And once you got it then you can talk shit! | |
| Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 8: You’ve got every right to tell us we’re talking shit. | |
| Guardian Guide 29 July–4 Aug. 28: Young people in reflective clothes talking shit. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 207: talk shit at the moon Talk rubbish. | |
| Intractable [ebook] ‘He’s talking shit, Warwick. The kid wouldn’t have the balls. He’s just a show pony’. |
3. (US) to boast, to brag.
| Mr Jive-Ass Nigger 148: ‘[T]hat cat think he’s some kind of gigolo, old motherfucker, look at ’im about to die of old age, talking all that jiveass shit’. | |
| Another Day in Paradise 22: I am the baddest motherfucker in the valley [...] This white boy can talk shit with the best of ’em. | |
| (con. 1975–6) Steel Toes 77: We’re [...] talking shit, me about getting loaded, him about broads in general. | |
| Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 1: Fungler starts talking shit saying, ‘After this roll all you working nigga’s are going to be sick! You’re gonna throw up on your way to the ATM’. | |
| Blacktop Wasteland 12: ‘He’ll be in there talking big shit like he was before’. |
4. (US campus) to criticize someone behind their back.
| Tattoo of a Naked Lady 95: I know the girls talk shit about me [...] they’re jealous. | |
| Alphaville (2011) 285: The crooks weren’t the only ones that knew our names and talked shit about Rambo and Fastback. | |
| Cherry 210: Nine times out of ten, you have a friend, he’s gonna talk shit about you. |
5. (US black) to talk slang.
| Die Nigger Die! 30: Signifying at its best can be heard when brothers are exchanging tales. I used to hang out in the bars just to hear the old men ‘talking shit’. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 232: Richard is my boy, / and talkin’ shit / is my pride and motherfucken joy. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines xxi: I think I lost ’bout 1000 points for talkin’ shit. |
6. (US black, also tell someone shit) to talk aggressively, to challenge verbally; thus shit-talking adj., talking in such a way.
| Chosen Few (1966) 42: You’re talkin’ a lotta deep shit, man ... is it all your own thinking? | |
| Gentleman of Leisure 148: I used to give Silky mouth. In Ottowa you could tell pimps shit. | |
| Choirboys (1976) 93: This paddy started talkin some crazy shit when the dude owned the car caught him stealin the radio. | |
| Little Boy Blue (1995) 116: Talk all that shit behind bars. He’d scream like a bitch if I got at his ass. | |
| ‘Trill Ass Nigga’ 🎵 Yeah Bun I’ll talk shit / But if you think I can’t back it up niggaz, try and make a fuckin hit. | |
| Portable Promised Land (ms.) 9: A shit-talkin clown [...] who walked up and dissed you playfully but pointedly. | |
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 67: This kind of [...] shit-talking made up 99 percent of the jibba-jabba anyone ever stepped to her with in Ithaca. |
7. (US black) to incoporate spoken words (as opposed to a song’s lyrics) as part of a musical performance.
| Adventures 102: Cab Calloway [...] that cat could talk some shit. If it’s one thing black folks in the ghetto know how to do, it’s talk shit. Been talking shit, singing shit, rhyming shit, and mumbling shit since day one. Wasn’t hard to see what talking shit over a beat could do to a party. |
Verbs based on a general abstract thing or situation
1. (orig. US, also catch shit) to impress, to influence, to make a difference.
| (con. c.1970) Short-Timers (1985) 119: That don’t cut no shit out here. This is the field, motherfucker. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 234: didn’t catch shit Didn’t impress anyone. | |
| Dime to Dance 140: That don’t cut no shit anymore [HDAS]. |
2. (US campus) to act eccentrically.
| Campus Sl. Fall 3: CUT SHIT – behave in an unconventional manner. |
(US) to beat someone up.
| ‘That’s Got His Own’ Wire ser. 4 ep. 12 [TV script] He went hard on his boy last night. Fucked his shit up. |
(US) to cease bothering someone; as imper., get off my shit, leave me alone.
| et al. Angel Dust 78: It’s cool to just stand out every once in a while saying, ‘fuck you’ and ‘Get off my shit. Who the fuck are you to tell me what I am’. |
to do something successfully, competently.
| Rakim Told Me 156: ‘I was the kind of guy who was like: “Yo, if I get my shit off, I’m gonna help you guys”’. | |
| ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] I can’t front, she got her shit off. She set the God up nice. |
1. to calm down, to plan sensibly.
| Positively Black 158: Whether blacks will be able to ‘get their shit together’ remains in question, but if they do, it will certainly be in the style of soul. | |
| House of Slammers 180: You guys git your shit together. | |
| Straight Outta Compton 21: ‘You need to get your act/game/program/shit together,’ Clive said. | |
| Goodoo Goodoo 6: By the time I get my shit together it’ll be showtime. | |
| Layer Cake 14: I got my shit together and headed up to south-east Asia. | |
| Rubdown [ebook] You’re thirty-five, mate. Time to get your shit together. | |
| My War (2006) 29: And hopefully after that I would finally get my shit together and ‘grow up’. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] Get your shit together [...] rescue Nick, save Alex and Sean and yourself. | |
| Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 5: You need to get your shit together. | |
| Scrublands [ebook] ‘I promised my mum I was getting my shit together’. | |
| California Bear 28: [S]omething motivational to read. Something like So You’ve Been in Prison and Need to Get Your Shit Together. |
2. to be competent.
| If I Die in a Combat Zone (1980) 53: The Nam, it ain’t so bad, not if you got your shit together. | |
| Gardens of Stone (1985) 47: Wildman, get your shit together, boy. | |
| (con. 1968) Where the Rivers Ran Backward 119: Just get your shit together, God damn you. | |
| Tuff 43: I got a plan to get my shit together. Put all my caca in one big pile. | |
| ‘–30–’ Wire ser. 5 ep. 10 [TV script] I always wondered if they’d get their shit together. |
(orig. US black) to be in full control of a situation.
| ‘Rapping and Capping: Black Talk as Art’ in Szwed Black America 132: Of high value [in ‘black talk’] is getting and keeping your stuff or shit together, which means knowing at all times what you're doing and being able to use your best verbal devices. | |
| Choirboys (1976) 93: Most a these young jitterbug social workers don’t look like they got all their shit in one bag anyhow. | |
| Union Dues (1978) 182: Slick always had a lot of women on his case but his shit was together. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 28: You groovy. Got yo’ shit together. | |
| Brown’s Requiem 70: Thing were different then. I had my shit together. | |
| Nick’s Trip 124: I tripped stepping up over a concrete divider and felt Billy [...] yank me back into balance. ‘Keep your shit,’ he said. | |
| Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 16: You’ve definitely got to have your shit together. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] Keep your shit together, I told myself. | |
| Glorious Heresies 302: ‘Jesus, Georgie, you had your shit together’. | |
| Border [ebook] He just hopes the Italians have their shit together. | |
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 16: Which show you how good the bitch had her shit together not at all. |
(US) to inscribe one’s name and gang affiliation on a wall.
| Central Sl. 28: hit-my-shit-up To paint one’s name or street name on a wall. |
(US) to be very competent.
| Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 know (one’s) shit be very competent. ‘When it comes to plumbing, Bill really knows his shit.’. | |
| Powder 359: These guys, trust me – they know their shit. | |
| Observer Screen 9 Jan. 11: Shakespeare was a dead white guy but he knows his shit. |
(US black) to act in a particular way; usu. in negative as I don’t play that shit, I don’t do that.
| Central Sl. 47: shit, I don’t play that [...] I won’t tolerate it. | |
| ‘In Da Hood’ 🎵 on New Breed [album] Now homie, you better get to know me better / Before you be bleedin’ pints of blood into Iceberg sweater / When the tails come flyin’ up out the beretta / You gon’ feel like it’s yo’ fault and say ‘Man I knew better’ / Look dogg, I don’t play that shit. |
(US black) to do something devious, underhand, treacherous.
| letter 16 Oct. in Charters II (1999) 384: Nobody’s gonna pull that shit on me. | |
| Choirboys (1976) 218: Goddamn Rampart cars’ve been pulling this shit too often lately. | |
| Bonfire of the Vanities 43: You let your prisoners pull . . . this shit . . . on the citizens of this community. | |
| Pulp Fiction [film script] 155: You happened to pull this shit while I’m in a transitional period. | |
| Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 53: You can’t keep pulling this shit and think everyone will be all right the next day. |
see under game n.
see separate entry.
General verbs
to get rid of something or someone.
| DSUE (8th edn) 459/2: C.20. |
Comparatives
In phrases
a general intensifer, e.g. mad as shit.
| Call It Sleep (1977) 410: Hadn’t his conductor been slow as shit on the bell? | |
| Rivers of Blood 361: Maybe three, four thousand people all around, and he standing there, big as shit, saying: [etc]. | |
| Memphis-Nam-Sweden 151: Pappy was slow as shit. | |
| Blue Messiah 55: ‘He’s stupid as . . .’ [...] The boy with the pencil volunteered, ‘Stupid as shit,’ and rocked with laughter. | |
| (con. 1960s) Wanderers 189: I’m pissed as shit at you. | |
| Prime Minister (1978) 65: Shirl, you looking sexy as shite, yuh! | |
| Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack 78: Boy, you bright as shite! | |
| ‘Beyond the Zone of the Zero Funkativity’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 44: Great if you’re a breaking member of the boogie box brigade, tired as shit if you ain’t. | |
| (con. WWII) Flights of Passage 78: Come on, you guys, it’s blue as shit out there! | |
| Big Boys in Kani (1994) 115: No fuck . . . true’s shit? | |
| (con. 1982–6) Cocaine Kids (1990) 100: Everybody in the joint broke. It was funny as shit. | |
| Woman Who Walked Into Doors 31: She was as mad as shite. | |
| (con. 1986) Sweet Forever 45: Pretty as shit the way he elevated. | |
| Last Precinct 238: Yeah, he’s smart as shit. | |
| Turning Angel 359: Y’all were being shady as shit, too. | |
| Running the Books 55: Everything was shit [...] Her winters were cold as __, and her summers hot as __. | |
| Negus Who Read 6 Mar. 🌐 There are little-eared people who are evil as shit. | |
| Opal Country 52: ‘‘Limo?’ [...] ‘This big black limousine. Shiny as shit’. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 123: ‘What about me? I’m handsome as shit’. |
1. intensely, aggressively.
| On the Pad 126: [H]ere come two fucking turkeys, colored guys, creeping around. They’re going to jump on Harry bigger than shit. |
2. unarguably, absolutely.
| On the Pad 268: Pick up a paper, page five, there’s Narducci, bigger than shit, fucking dead, shot. |
1. whatsoever, at all, in any way.
| Blackstone Rangers 121: ‘Joel, he don’t like white people for shit’. | |
| (con. 1940s) Tattoo (1977) 224: ‘She still can’t fuck for shit,’ he sneered. | |
| Aussie Bull 10: ‘We can’t swim for shit, but we go through the motions!’ . | |
| Heathers [film script] Heather left behind one of her Swatches. She’d want you to have it, Veronica. She always said you couldn’t accessorise for shit. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 49: Not that you could see for shit. | |
| Triggerfish Twist (2002) 178: You didn’t fight for shit, John! Now sit down! | |
| Intractable [ebook] I deserved that serve because I can’t sing for shit but. | |
| (con. 1980s) Skagboys 381: The auld girl cannae cook fer shit. | |
| Finders Keepers (2016) 38: Look at me - hooked through the bag on Oxy, and still in pain, because it doesnt work for shit any more. | |
| ‘The Last Ride’ in Broken 291: ‘[Y]ou couldn’t block for shit’. |
2. very badly; also as adj., awful, very unpleasant.
| Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1977) 38: This dressing is for shit. | |
| Clockers 351: Could you turn the music down a little? My hearing’s for shit. | |
| Night Dogs 64: ‘[S]ome stupid nigger in this for-shit neighborhood?’. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 130: Barb missed high notes. She sang for shit. | |
| Straight Dope [ebook] The wine’s for shit. |
(US) of any sort whatsoever, across the entire spectrum.
| Carlito’s Way 17: You can read books from shit to Shinnecock, ain’t gonna help. |
(US campus) very good.
| Campus Sl. Mar. 2: good as shit! – terrific. |
(Aus.) inexorably.
| Intractable [ebook] The screws fell on me like flies to shit. Their sheer weight of numbers overwhelmed me. |
in a supercilious manner.
| Sun. Too Far Away 37: First shed he’s ever rung in his life, and now he’s walking around like his shit don’t stink. | |
| ‘Tall Poppies Deserve Short Shrift’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] How many people do you know with money that are totally convinced their crap doesn’t stink. | |
| Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘[Y]ou felt safe, like your shit didn’t stink, like you were better than everybody else’. |
1. very fast, enthusiastically.
| ‘Poor Little Angeline’ in (1979) 182: He ran like shit lest the squire should split / Poor little Angeline. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘Poor Little Angeline’ in Snatches and Lays 39: And he ran like shit lest the squire should split. | |
| Last Toke 102: A black girl from Georgia, a girl who thought herself better than most – a five Creole – to be getting away with what Honey had been shoving like shit down his throat. |
2. badly.
| in Derelicts of Company K (1978) 394: Beans, hash, stew, wienies, macaroni – all cooked like shit. Even the chicken on Sunday tastes like hell. | |
| (con. 1960s) Tripmaster Monkey 159: She handed out the gorgeous raiment saying to the actors, ‘Treat it like shit.’ That’s class. | |
| Guardian 8 Aug. 🌐 We're living like shit in this country. |
3. very much.
| Body of Evidence (1992) 310: I hate like shit when someone lies to me. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 18 Aug. 337/1: The houses shake like shit, every summer [as a result of cyclones]. | |
| ‘Zed’s Dead, Baby’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] I hope like shit I haven’t worken the baby. |
promptly, immediately, fast.
| Humboldt Indep. (IA) 15 July 4/2: The people here [...] jump from one extreme to another and bob around like spit on a hot griddle. | |
| Adam M-1 122: ‘[It] takes off like spit on a hot girdle.’ ‘That’s griddle.’ ‘Griddle.’. | |
| Spike Island (1981) 497: So my mate’s off like shit off a shovel [...] and we nobbled him. | |
| Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghampton, NY) 22 Mar. 9/2: His drumsticks were supersonic blurs; cymbals [...] danced like spit on a hot griddle. | |
| Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) 15 Mar. 31/1: His language can be peppery as a cowpoke’s [...] dancing areound a difficult issue ‘like spit on a hot griddle’. | |
| (con. 1960s) Blood Brothers 189: I’m gonna be on you like steam on piss. | |
| Silver Bullet film synopsis 🌐 This is magnificently caught in the scene where he presents Marty with a customized motorized wheelchair he has built for him, that literally does go like shit off a shovel! | |
| Tampa Bay Times (St Petersburg, FL) 18 Mar. 10/2: Federal lawmakers can [...] be held hostage by these special interwest groups and jump to their will like spit on a hot griddle. |
extremely closely.
| Skin Tight 95 : Physicians stick together like shit on a shoe. | |
| Six Out Seven (1994) 276: The little kid was sticking to him like shit to a shoe. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 2 Mar. 47/1: One of those places that [...] treats outsiders like shit on a shoe. |
(US) instantly, with extreme purposiveness.
| Q&A 186: ‘That’s cool for you. You his boon-coon. But what about me and Nat? He’ll be on us like shit on a stick’. |
with maximum energy, thus extremely fast; efficiently; aggressively.
| Actionable Offenses Young Cylinder E (2007) [cylinder recording] She’s out in the paddock! And they let ’er loose, she slips along like shit through a goose, and she’ll win in a walk, by Jesus! | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 671: He’ll go through that field like shit through a goose. | |
| Lyra Ebriosa 🌐 And her jockey is light from self-abuse, / And she’ll go through that crowd like shit through a goose. | |
| Aus. Vulgarisms [t/s] 10: like shit through a goose, go through someone: To trounce, to beat a person thoroughly. Also, to deal simply or easily with a task. | |
| Public Burning (1979) 412: It whistled bucklety-whet through the parade like shit through a tin horn. | |
| Animal House [film script] Wormer: Put a sock in it, boy, or else you’ll be outta here like shit through a goose. | |
| Maledicta VI:1+2 Summer/Winter 125: Patton in a film promising that his troops are going to go through the enemy ‘like crap through a goose’. | |
| (con. WWII) Town Talk (Alexandria, LA) 11 Sept. A4/3: Patton [...] said ‘I hope to go through the Siegfried Line like shit through a goose’. | |
| Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] [A] late-model, metallic green Holden Berlina that went like a shower of shit. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 89: go like a power of piss/a shower of shit/shit through a goose Move fast. | |
| Black Swan Green 312: Slipp’rier than shit through a goose. | |
| Viva La Madness 314: I jump through the automatic barriers like shit through a goose. | |
| Locked Ward (2013) 126: ‘Hum-free do a runner?’ ‘Out of that door like shite out of a goat’. | |
| Rough Trade [ebook] Normally, in my role as bouncer, the riot act went through me like poop through a goose [ibid.] [I] ran, ran, ran like two hundred and forty pounds of shit through a goose. | |
| Braywatch 325: ’[Y]ou know how quickly rumours spread in a town like Bray.’ The phrase ‘like shit through a goose’ comes to mind. | |
| Boy from County Hell 44: ‘Word travels faster than shit through a goose around here’. |
(US black) very closely, extremely intimately.
| ‘The Signifying Monkey II’ in et al. Life (1976) 29: Baboon turned his head to take a spit, / And lion was on him like stink on a shit. | |
| Great Santini (1977) 412: You aren’t going to score a single goddam point tonight, Meecham, ’cause I’m gonna be on you like stink on shit. | |
| Paco’s Story (1987) 129: There were Marines and sailors all over everything, like stink on shit. | |
| (con. 1960s) Blood Brothers 14: They were on Cheese like stink on shit. [Ibid.] 41: I jumped on that gook’s ass like stink on glue. [Ibid.] 53: I jabbed the knife into him two or three times. It was all over in a matter of seconds. I was on his ass like funk on a skunk. | |
| (con. 1998–2000) You Got Nothing Coming 100: Lockdowns go with shakedowns like — as Kansas would say — ‘stank on shit’. |
a general pej. phr. used of anyone the speaker dislikes.
| DSUE (8th edn) 1110/2: [...] late C.19–20. |
a phr. used of a very slim person.
| DSUE (8th edn) 1108/2: [...] from ca. 1880. |
see under sure as... phr.
general intensifier.
| Caldo Largo (1980) 64: You’re drunker than shit, man. | |
| Border [ebook] At first it [withdrawal] was a bitch, she was sicker than shit. |
Proverbial uses
a statement denoting the speaker’s absolute confidence, whether in a real bet or merely a point of view.
| Savage Gold 95: Nothing could be better: it was five pounds to a pinch of (as he, vulgarly, put it to himself) dog-dirt that Yang was in the far hut. | |
| Elites, Ethnographic Issues 98: I’ll bet a pound to a pinch of shit that it will be all around the coffee rooms. | |
| (con. WWII) Submarine in Fleet Streetr 101: I’ll bet a pound to a pinch of shit. | |
| Scatterlings of Africa 144: Can’t be sure which direction they went, but I’ll bet a pound to a pinch of shit that they headed straight for the Mazimbi TTL. |
(US gay) to have violent anal intercourse.
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
don’t get over-excited.
| DSUE (8th edn) 329/1: C.20. |
(Can.) a phr. used of an especially mealy-mouthed, hypocritical person.
| Dict. Catch Phrases (2nd edn). |
a hugely exaggerated phr. implying the extent of one’s infatuation.
| Mouth and Oral Sex 88: Our high-school phrase — ‘She’s so sweet — I could use her shit for toothpaste’ — contains another significant element. | |
| Flesh of Morning 63: She’s fabulous, [...] could use her shit for toothpaste. | |
| Blood Brothers 16: I’d eat a mile of shit if it lead to her asshole. | |
| Maledicta 1 Summer 18: There’s many a man would eat a yard of her shit for a lick at her hole. (This is not recommended.). | |
| Argument of Kings 35: ‘Honest, you could use her shit for toothpaste,’ John said. | |
| ‘Witney RFC Day’ 🌐 The 2nd Haddon Hill visit saw a very interesting meal with a certain waitress, Mark uttered in his usual quiet voice, ‘I’d like to use her shit for toothpaste and piss for gargle water.’. | |
| ‘Get Some’ Generation Kill ep. 1 [TV script] I’d eat a mile of her shit just to see where it came from. |
(Aus.) a phr. implying the intensity of one’s starvation.
| DSUE (8th edn) 593/2: since ca. 1950. |
(orig. US black) life goes on as normal, with no surprises, good or bad.
| National Lampoon Dec. 112: [ad.] SAME SHIT DIFFERENT DAY. | |
| (con. 1982–6) Cocaine Kids (1990) 127: Then after a while all of them wanted a piece. Same shit, different day. | |
| Teenage Wasteland 110: I ask about Susie. ‘Same shit.’. | |
| Observer Mag. 31 Oct. 19: Nothing really changes, does it? [...] Same shit, different day. | |
| Dreamcatcher 6: What about SSDD? Whose brainstorm had that been? [Ibid.] 10 : ‘How you doing, man?’ Beaver asks. ‘Oh, you know,’ Henry says. ‘Same shit, different day.’. |
(US black) problems always come at the same time, rather than one by one.
| Person Under The Stairs Forums ‘The Bill Report’ 1 Mar. 🌐 As I said- Shit Comes In Piles. Feel free to quote me on that, would yah? |
an all-purpose statement of resignation in the face of life’s vicissitudes, i.e. these things happen; also euph. i.e. cite 1994.
| Stand (1990) 665: Lots of people wore T-shirts which said shit happens, which it certainly did. | |
| Campus Sl. Mar. 5: Shitang! – expression of disgust. [Ibid.] Nov. 5 : that shit happens – an expression of resignation. | |
| National Lampoon Dec. 113: [ad.] Shit Happens. And there’s nothing you can do about it, so let everybody know. | |
| Skin Tight 20: The problem’s not yours. Anyway, this shit happens. | |
| Dly Press (Newport News, VA) 3 June 4/1: As we all know guano happens. | |
| Source Nov. 106: When frustrations are flaring, shit happens. | |
| Goodoo Goodoo 211: Yeah, like the man said. Shit happens. | |
| Reuters 28 Oct. n.p.: Actor Mark Harmon’s use of the phrase ‘s–-- happens’ was believed to be the first scripted, uncensored utterance of the ‘s’ word on a broadcast network series in prime time. | |
| Crumple Zone 43: Ootie’s Late Niter in the early morning that proves the saying shit happens. | |
| ‘Medium Rare’ Oz ser. 4 ep. 9 [TV script] ‘Ass-fucking?’ ’Shit happens’. | |
| Gift 129: So sorry to hear about your father. Shit happens. | |
| Londonstani (2007) 89: Shit happens when you’re ridin’ in a Beemer. | |
| Running the Books 12: Hey, shit happens, goes the refrain among those who catch a case, wrong place, wrong time. | |
| Glorious Heresies 55: Shit happens, then more shit happens. |
the difficulties start to happen, esp. when such problems have been expected to occur sooner or later; usu. used with when. Euph. alternatives include the brown stuff hits the fan, the ca-ca…, the cheese and chutney…, the doo-doo…, the manure…, the merde…, the spit…, the stuff…, the sushi…, the solids hit the air conditioning, the pooh hits the pukka wallah.
| (con. 1944) Naked and Dead 573: When the shit hits the fan that’s when you keep a . . . | |
| Blackboard Jungle 181: Those are the guys who wonder later why they were there when the crap hit the fan. | |
| West Side Story I i: When you’re a Jet, / If the spit hits the fan, / You got brothers around, / You’re a family man! | |
| diary 5 Nov. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 173: This morning, the shit hit the fan [...] Sparks comes leaping up the after ladder like the sodding Zulus were after him. | |
| Naked Lunch (1968) 252: Yes sir, boys, the shit really hit the fan in ’63. | |
| Out of the Burning (1961) 124: Me? I never saw Fancydan once the crap hit the fan. | |
| (con. 1950s) Man Walking On Eggshells 197: Yeh, the stuff’s gonna hit the fan in 1964. | |
| Where Have All the Soldiers Gone 18: ‘[J]ust about everybody freezes up the first time the shit hits the fan’. | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 163: Well, boys, the shit is about to hit the fan. | |
| Gumshoe (1998) 137: When the crap hits the fan as it surely will one day in your country. | |
| Serial 60: When Bill said he ‘punched out at raw fish,’ the sushi hit the fan. | |
| Patriot Game (1985) 65: Then the shit hit the fan, and he was smart enough to keep quiet. | |
| Train to Hell 41: It was on the way back that the cheese and chutney really hit the fan. | |
| Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 276: I sense that the solids are about to hit the air-conditioning. | |
| Tourist Season (1987) 289: Two of the four Nights of December getting a big ride in the newspaper just before the ca-ca hits the fan. | |
| Skin Tight 161: The proverbial doo-doo was getting ready to hit the proverbial fan. | |
| Chopper From The Inside 82: When the shit hits the fan, keep an eye on the people closest to you. | |
| Indep. 28 Oct. 8: The delicious scent of government manure hitting the fan. | |
| Guardian G2 10 Jan. 6: It was only when women joined in the conversation about sexual freedom at the close of the 60s that the merde really hit the fan. | |
| Vatican Bloodbath 91: To use the, ah, North American vernacular – the ah, pooh is about to hit the old pukka wallah. | |
| Dreamcatcher 409: I can be here with a Sno-Cat five minutes after the shit hits the fan. | |
| 98.6 Degrees 32: You’ll never truly know what you’re made of until the day the brown stuff hits the fan. | |
| Urban Grimshaw 178: The rest of use were [...] hoping to avoid the worst of it when the shit hit the fan. | |
| Fourth Down and Long 71: It’s easy to say you have a good relationship with God when times are good, but how is it when the stuff hits the fan? | |
| Winter of Frankie Machine (2007) 52: If the stuff hits the fan, you hit the deck and stay there till it gets real quiet. | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘The shit’s really gonna hit the fan’. | |
| Guardian CiF 21 Jan. 🌐 But could it be it is because the shit is really hitting the fan at the NOW and is creeping right up the chain of command? | |
| Rough Trade [ebook] ‘When did the shit start hitting the fan with you and Byron?’. | |
| ‘Music x Road’ 🎵 Shit hit the fan and nobody wanted to know. |
(US) a phr. describing anything considered ugly, esp. someone obese or overweight.
| Green River Rising 309: This white motherfucka [...] looks like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag. | |
| Gateway 23 Jan. XCII:30 🌐 If my morning routine consists of scratching deez nuts, my peers don’t consider me particularly behind in the grooming department. However, if a girl tried to pull this same stunt (substituting, of course, ‘deez nuts’ with other things), she’d probably be told by several of her more blunt friends that she looked like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. | |
| Old Scores [ebook] ‘Built like fifty pounds of shit in a twenty-pound bag?’. |
(orig. US) to behave affectedly and in an arrogant manner.
| in Pissing in the Snow (1976) 117: She says they ain’t good enough for her, and the whole Wilson family acted like they thought Cora’s shit didn’t stink. | |
| in Derelicts of Company K (1978) 105: That fuckin’ staff sergeant thinks his shit don’t stink. | |
| Hoods (1953) 144: Them kind act as though their shit don’t stink. | |
| Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 15: The ones who think their shit don’t stink. | |
| posting at frazzlednerves.net 6 July 🌐 The really messed up part about this joke, he acts like his shit don’t stink but he’s dumb as hell. He swears he’s mackin’ but he’s slackin’. | |
| Village Voice 11 Apr. 🌐 Everyone on the planet thinks they’re some kind of hoity-toity master chef whose s--t don’t stink. |
(US) to behave affectedly and in an arrogant manner; note ad hoc vars. in cits. 1948 and 1977.
| (con. 1944) Naked and Dead 128: His shit don’t smell like ice cream either. | |
| (con. 1949) True Confessions (1979) 93: You think you can swim in shit and come out smelling like chocolate ice cream. | |
| Thug’s Journal 21 Mar. 🌐 Snake say ‘That nigger be useless as a bull with one horn and one nut. He think he shit smell like ice cream!’. |
a phr. used to indicate that a person is very stupid.
| DSUE (8th edn) 1364/2: [...] C.20. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 234: wouldn’t know if he/she wants a shit or a haircut Prize ditherer. |
you’re a useful, alert, efficient person – like hell you are!
| DSUE (8th edn) 1367/2: [...] C.20. |
Negatives
(N.Z.) no chance.
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 101/1: shit show no chance, in phr. not a shit show; eg ‘The poor bastard hasn’t a shit show of winning and looks as if he knows it.’. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
of a person, absolutely worthless or incompetent.
| ‘Blind Nell’ in (1979) 26: He isn’t fit to shovel shit. | |
| God Ship Venus in (1979) 99: He wasn’t fit to shovel shit / The fornicating bugger. |
to be completely ignorant.
| Requiem for a Dream (1987) 175: Poor old Pussy didnt know from shit. |
1. to have no idea about a topic.
| (con. 1948) Flee the Angry Strangers 177: Those replacement kids scuffin about out there [...] not knowin shit from good apple butter. | |
| Garden of Sand (1981) 105: You don’t know shit from beans. | |
| Semi-Tough 197: [He] had to be one of those Eastern, lockjaw motherfuckers who wouldn’t know shit from tunafish. | |
| Maledicta 1 Summer 13: Likewise, he don’t know sheepshit from cherry-seed, or don’t know a mule’s ass from a lemon, or can’t tell owlshit from putty without a map. | |
| Muvver Tongue 41: Someone abysmally ignorant ‘doesn’t know shit from clay’. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 125/2: wouldn’t know shit from clay naive or stupid persons. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 342: doesn’t know beans; doesn’t know dung from honey. | |
| (con. 1969) Suicide Charlie 66: Same-same didn’t know shit from a salami and I didn’t care what he thought. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 234: wouldn’t know shit from clay — unless you tasted it Severely limited person. |
2. to be particularly wrong in an opinion.
| (con. 1946) Big Blowdown (1999) 53: Those guys don’t know shit from apple butter. |
1. (also not know shit from shaving cream, ...shine, ...shortbread, …toothpaste, not know cattle from Shinola, ...crap from Shinola) to have no idea about a topic.
| Lucifer with a Bk 62: O, I know crap from shineola, the boy answered, laughing loudly. | |
| in Sweet Daddy 63: Take most these babes [...] they don’t know shit from shinola. | |
| (con. 1945) Tattoo (1977) 344: They don’t know shit from Shinola when it comes to all us who worked like niggers all our lives. | |
| Cutter and Bone (2001) 263: That do sound like Mister Humperdinck don’t know cattle from Shinola. | |
| Duke of Deception (1990) 138: You’re still a pup, don’t know shit from shine about anything. | |
| Fort Apache, The Bronx 233: You guys have been on this job ten, fifteen years, and you don’t know shit from shinola. | |
| Paco’s Story (1987) 174: Some rear-rank slick-sleeve private (who doesn’t know dismounted, close-order drill from shit and Shinola). | |
| Green River Rising 162: Some of his guys didn’t know shit from toothpaste. | |
| (con. 1949) Big Blowdown (1999) 160: Course, Costa, he don’t know shit from Shinola. | |
| Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] ‘I got three young hillbillies wandering around out there who wouldn’t know shit from shortbread’. | |
| Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] Besides doing a bit of a dump on their colleagues Corris and Pope wouldn’t know shit from shaving cream. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 513: The geek didn’t know. The geek knew shit from Shinola. | |
| Life 111: It was so nebulous. We didn’t know shit from Shinola. | |
| Orphan Road 115: ‘Some [guys] were full of it. Others were the real deal. It was kind of hard to sort out the shit from the Shinola’. |
2. (also not know a shin from Shinola) to be particularly wrong in an opinion; ad hoc vars. exist.
| Hero Ship 60: How’ll that look? The usual ‘shit from Shinola?’. | |
| Hot to Trot 8: Irene doesn’t know shit from Shinola. Why shouldn’t I go out to the old homestead? | |
| Drylongso 110: As long as they can get folks to say that shit is shinola, they would rather deal shit any day. | |
| Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 81: The alert reader — if any of you turkeys know a shin from Shinola. | |
| Get Your Cock Out 13: The Northern skinhead knew his shit from his shinola. |
(US) to say nothing.
| (con. 1975–6) Steel Toes 164: Make sure he knows better than to testify or say shit about Shinola. |
see separate entry.
(Aus.) useless, unappealing.
| G’DAY 9: This place is up the shit. |
Fig. general phrases
In phrases
(US black) used of someone/something useless, worthless or of absolutely no value.
| Candy (1970) 153: If a woman don’t function, she ain’t shit. | |
| Annotated Collection of Obscene Humor 24: Rosh Hashena ain’t shit compared to Yum Kippur. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 50: Boy, you ain’t shit. | |
| Street Players 12: What you’re talking about ain’t shit, Charles. [Ibid.] 49: You know, niggers ain’t shit! | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 228: ain’t shit 1. Be worthless. 2. Be untrustworthy, unreliable. | |
| Central Sl. 47: shit, ain’t [...] ‘Joe ain’t shit.’. | |
| Guardian 7 Nov. 22/5: Cameraman’s apologia: ‘Television ain’t shit’. | |
| Pimp’s Rap 115: Take me and leave her. I ain’t shit. I’m a worthless, no good motherfucker. | |
| You Got Nothing Coming 33: Muthafuckin’ Skell ain’t sheeit! I be known his pale ass from county. | |
| Baltimore Sun (MD) 17 Sept. T147/3: Men who want to tell you how [...] you ain’t shit at all, or [...] how you ain’t shit once you’re not impressed with them. |
(orig. US black) a general abstract term, usu. thrown into the end of a sentence, similar to you know phr.
| Deep Down in the Jungle 70: Then the monkey's wife started her shit, / ‘See that, monkey, that’s what you git / Going around signifying and shit’. | |
| My Main Mother 148: You cats could be from Brooklyn, and shit, except for that funny-assed way you talk. You splids sound like the British are coming, and shit. | |
| Ripping and Running 149: He looks like he’s gettin dizzy and shit. | |
| Jones Men 9: The dope man got smart and started cussin’ and shit. | |
| Nam (1982) 43: It wasn’t real. It was TV — hey, heroes and shit. | |
| Heathers [film script] vs: No, my life’s not perfect. I don’t really like my friends. jd: I... I don’t really like your friends either. vs: Well, it’s just like they’re people I work with, and our job is being popular and shit. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 3: It sounded to him, with all that static and shit, that the brothers were talking Chinese. | |
| (con. 1998–2000) You Got Nothing Coming 53: Cain’t a muthafucka make hisself a phone call without y’all acting up and shit? | |
| Thrill City [ebook] I resolved to get out of the office more and into, like, nature and shit. | |
| Running the Books 14: It gets all up into your cells and shit. | |
| Blacktop Wasteland 28: ‘Them Russians [...] trying to be all scary and shit’. |
(Aus.) frightened.
| Aus. Vulgarisms [t/s] 13: between a shit & a shiver = in a funk. |
(US) in an unpleasant situation.
| letter q. in Wiley Life of Billy Yank (1952) 171: To tell the plain truth we are between a sh-t and a sweat out here. |
see crock of shit n.
no matter what.
| John Peel 8: '[I]t was always fantastically comforting to know that old Peely was still out there doing it, come shit or shine. |
see separate entry.
see dick n.1
(US) for fun, ‘for the hell of it’.
| [ | | Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 139: [F]or giggles I felt like reporting her to the law for attempted rape]. |
| [ | | El Paso 234: Maybe somebody was getting their shits and giggles out of this sorry mess, but it sure hadn’t given him any laughs]. |
| Egg Nog 30 21 June 2/1: In [...] Why Me #16 Lee gave, just for shits and grins, some information on hwo [sic] many copies of his ’zine go to any certain state. | |
| Desperadoes (1981) 325: ‘Say, just for shits and grins, I’m lookin’ for some shoats strayed out of the pigsty’ . | |
| Organs of the Media 126: ‘I took it in Spanish, for shits and giggles.’ ‘Grins. Shits and grins.’ ‘Giggles’. | |
| Heights (Boston, MA) 12 Mar. 14/4: The best game [...] featured two undefeated women’s teams, the Basketcases (11-0) and the Shits and Giggles (11-0) . | |
| Generic EIS for Nuclear Power Plant Operating Licenses A-33: Just for shits and giggles I’ll read you -- sorry, strike it, don’t strike it, I don't care. | |
| Living for the Epic 55: Just for shits and giggles, he strains his eyes toward the river and down the bank. | |
| Internet Dating 115: In the end, Lance is really talking to her...just for shits and giggles. | |
| Hard Bounce [ebook] [E]very now and then we’ll pick up a bail jumper for shits and giggles. | |
| Lives Laid Away [ebook] For shits and giggles, I did a scan of the faces of the guys on their Frankfurt executive page. | |
| Twitter 11 Mar. 🌐 Men who ape us for shits and giggles are protected by the hate crime bill . | |
| Razorblade Tears 194: ‘He’ll probably still kill Tangerine for shit and giggles’. | |
| Opal Country 465: ‘Bought it for shits and giggles’. | |
| Seven Demons 155: [I]t is not easy to buy pigs [...] just for shits and giggles. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 14: [D]issidents dialled the boss for kicks and grins. | |
| California Bear 8: They don’t rush you to the hospital for shits and giggles. |
(N.Z.) in a bad mood.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
in serious trouble; extended as in deep shit.
| [ | | (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 549: We are damnably beshit, since you give no heed at all to the equity of the plea, and the devil sings among you]. |
| letter 24 July in Leader (2000) 288: If chaps in the shit climb out of the shit, it’s by good luck, not by their own efforts. | |
| in Sweet Daddy 80: I’m stuck, see? Square in the shit. | |
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 92: Barry’s gone and got himself in the shit. | |
| Animal Factory 88: We’re in deep shit. | |
| Breaking Out 130: You’re in shit up to your neck. | |
| Spike Island (1981) 340: You’re in the shit, aren’t you, Jimmy? | |
| Patriot Game (1985) 65: All of a sudden Magro is in the shit up to his earlobes and thinking seriously about dialling nine-eleven. | |
| Fixx 228: You’re in the shit, old boy. | |
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 299: I knew I was in the shit, but I didn’t think I rated the top dog. | |
| Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] Just piss off and leave us all in the shit. | |
| Sopranos 234: I’ll be in the deepest shit you can imagine. | |
| Powder 328: Guy called him, not unduly apologetic for leaving him in the shit. | |
| Yes We have No 114: Here we are today, still living in shit. | |
| Crumple Zone 167: You’re all in serious shit. Guaranteed. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 511: He’s in the shit again. | |
| (con. 1980s) A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 282: It looked like I was well in the shit. | |
| Intractable [ebook] I felt bad about getting Joey in the shit with his parents. | |
| ‘Prodigal Son’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] You’re in the shit, facing a gaol term. | |
| My Camp 81: Those who had neglected to write their name on everything were in a world of shit. | |
| Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘If I’m in the shit, then everybody’s in the shit’. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 502: ‘You’re in shit. Have you looked at this? [...] This isn’t a search warrant. It’s an arrest warrant’. |
nonsensical talk, usu. intended to persuade.
| Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 119–20: They’ll bring you cigarettes and candy to the jail / with a whole line of shit; ‘Daddy, I’m gonna get you out on bail.’. | |
| (con. 1950s) Unit Pride (1981) 288: Remember that line of shit that officer gave us when we landed? | |
| Clockers 502: I just asked why you were throwing me a line of shit. | |
| At End of Day (2001) 89: He’s givin’ the same line of shit to the towns, and the acts, and a few guys in Local Eight. |
(US black) an apology, ‘my mistake’.
| Tuff 153: ‘Be quiet, Smush, you trippin’?’ ‘My shit,’ Fariq apologized, quickly setting about covering his slip. |
In derivatives
(US black) in top form, prepared.
| Adventures 39: You had to be ready to battle at the drop of a hat [. . .] and you had to be on your shit if you dared to compete. |
(US) attracted by, pursuing sexually.
| On the Bro’d 190: [L]ike some kind of tang wizard he’d have like six girls at once all up on his shit. |
phr, indicating something non-specific, e.g. an amount or occurrence, ‘or something like that’.
| Harvard Advocate 100-1104 22/2: Staves grabbed me yesterday for having my shirt- tail out , or hair over my ears , or some shit. | |
| Dealer 116: ‘Mmmm-mmm,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘That [i.e. a Ferrari] is a car, man. What do they go for, fifteen thousand or some shit?’. | |
| Charlie Opera 3: You go out there for a sit-down with Lercasi, you gotta make like it’s a real-estate investment or some shit. | |
| Gutshot Straight [ebook] Nowadays, though, every other beatnik faggot was a VP for some big company that made fiber-optic Internet microchips or some shit. | |
| (con. 1973) Johnny Porno 263: ‘She got transporting or some shit’ [...] ‘You know if she gave the boyfriend up?’. | |
| Attack the Block [film script] 57: They mash up my whip with a bully van they stole, then bare more youngers come on peds with swords and bats, start threatenin’ me about aliens or some shit, facin’ me down, tellin’ me they lost my stash, tellin’ me I’m gonna get shiffed! | |
| Glorious Heresies 113: ‘And then you all hug or some shit and Tony goes home to resume gargling himself into the ground’. | |
| What They Was 167: You need to do this before your baby is born [...] it’s like his stag do or some shit. |
rubbish, nonsense, anything or anyone unappealling, worthless.
| (con. 1940s) Wax Boom 301: Every way of life is the end of the road, the puddle of shit to drown in. |
intense unpleasantness; usu. with knock/kick/beat/batter/lick/thump..., to beat severely.
| Mint (1955) 121: If that long spunking piece of piss pokes his head in here after us, I’ll knock seven different sorts of shit out of him. | |
| diary 20 Nov. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 185: If that had happened to one of them, he’d have knocked seven types of shit out of the Third Mate . | |
| ‘Prisoner and Escort’ in Cockade (1965) I iii: We’d have knocked seven colours of shit out of old Joe. | |
| Flame: a Life on the Game 69: I told her what happened, and when I say she kicked seven kinds of shit out of me, I mean she licked seven kinds of shit out of me. She knocked me from one end of the flat to the other. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 656: knock seven kinds of shit out of you [...] since ca. 1920 [Ibid.] 1227: thump seven kinds (occ. shades) of shit out of [...] since ca. 1950. | |
| Green River Rising 245: Agry kicked seven shades of shit out of them. | |
| ‘The Shooter’ in Acid House 4: Then we would knock seven types of shite out of him. | |
| Salesman 243: I’m gonna batter seven shades of shite out of yeh. | |
| Guardian Editor 5 Nov. 19: Who is the next person that is going to pull a black bag over your head and beat seven kinds of shit out of you? | |
| Calharay Herald (Alberta, CA) 1 Aug. 26/3: Even their weakest efforts kick seven kinds of shit out of their contenders . | |
| Guardian G2 2 Feb. 16/1: The nation’s attention focuses upon large men knocking seven kinds of tar out of each other. | |
| Locked Ward (2013) 116: They threatened to kick seven different colours of shit out of me. | |
| ‘Suicide Chump’ in ThugLit July [ebook] [E]veryone had grown bored of bullying seven shades of shit out of him. |
see separate entry.
(US) third-rate, of very poor quality.
| Garden of Sand (1981) 128: I don’t respect nothin nor nobody. We’s all shit for the catfish by and by. | |
| Paco’s Story (1987) 66: Shit-for-nothing, bunkhouse hostels saturated with cockroach poison. | |
| Teenage Wasteland 202: A shit-for-wage job. |
(Aus./N.Z.) something unacceptable or unpleasant.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. | |
| Headland [ebook] ‘It’s been a shit of a week, my dear’. |
humiliated.
| Gaudy Image (1966) 43: We’re both the shit-on hero. | |
| ‘Kansas University Sl.: A New Generation’ in AS XXXVIII:3 171: A boy so treated is said to have been dumped on, flushed or shit on. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 353: shit on, to be. To be dumped on; to be jilted or flushed, as by one’s date (also to get the brown helmet) Wayne: I’m just getting shit on here. Shit on. |
something extremely hard or impossible to do.
| www.computerandvideogames.com 🌐 World Cup is of course ‘completely different’ from FIFA 2002. That’s different in the same way that a shit on a string is different from a turd on a rope. | |
| posting at www.hotlyrics.net 6 June 🌐 This [i.e. a record] absolutley [sic] sucks like shit on a string. |
1. (mainly US milit.) creamed minced beef (i.e. with a with a white gravy) on toast.
| Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: cream on a shingle . . . creamed beef on toast. | |
| ‘Army Lang.’ in AS XX:4 Dec. 262: S.O.S. a familiar but unpopular Army breakfast food. | |
| ‘Some “G.I. Alphabet Soup”’ in AS XXII:2 Apr. 111: Such terms as S.O.L.,10S.O.S.,11 and T.S.12 [10. ‘S—t out of luck.’ 11. ‘S—t on a shingle,’ i.e. creamed meat (usually chipped beef) on toast. | |
| Battle Cry (1964) 50: Three times a week ground beef with gravy on toast [...] SOS, they call it. Shit on a shingle. | |
| (con. 1940s) Do Not Go Gentle (1962) 119: Simply shit on a shingle [...] Dee-licious! | |
| Chosen Few (1966) 74: ‘We should have shit on a shingle this mornin’.’ ‘That’s not too bad [...] I like creamed beef on toast ... puts hair on your chest.’. | |
| True Apr. 39: For breakfast, mess halls still serve ‘unmentionable on shingles,’ and GI’s down on their luck are still advised to have the chaplain punch their ‘TS cards’. | |
| (con. c.1970) Short Timers (1985) 63: Our own mess hall serves Kool-Aid and shit-on-a-shingle — chipped beef on toast. | |
| (con. 1970) 13th Valley (1983) 463: The kitchen orderly slopped a ladleful of the brown red mush atop a soggy piece of toast [...] ‘Shit-on-a-shingle.’. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 350: shit on a shingle (creamed chipped beef on toast, often abbreviated S.O.S. and known in the Navy as shit on a raft). | |
| Pugilist at Rest 75: Favorite breakfast: Shit on a Shingle. | |
| Guardian 30 Dec. 90/2: Elvis: The Army Years are represented by ‘SOS’ (Shit on a Shingle). | |
| Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 shit on a shingle (nounphrase) chipped beef on toast. US army term popularized during World War II. | |
| NYR Dly 9 July 🌐 We did our best to get enough food. We tried to get in front of the hunger by eating casseroles, greasy noodle dishes, and white bread covered in that sweetened condensed milk. Or SOS—‘shit on a shingle,’ toasted white bread with white gravy—ground beef when we could afford it. |
2. as an excl. of astonishment.
| Misery (1988) 181: Shit on a shingle! Love it! |
1. (US, also you-know-what on a stick) someone important.
| Violent Saturday n.p.: People always putting on the dog, trying to act like they’re you-know-what on a stick. | |
| in DARE 915/1: (When you can see from the way a person acts that he’s feeling important or independent) [...] Shit on a stick but he ain’t far on a splinter [...] hot shit on a stick [...] (people who are, or think they are, the best society of a community) shit on the stick. |
2. (US black) a self-appointed tough guy, more words than action.
| Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
3. a phr. used of someone one who is (looking) unwell or unhappy.
| Winter in Florida 38: ‘You look like shit on a stick.’ [...] ‘Give me a hand. I feel like throwing up.’. | |
| Love or Money 66: You look like shit on a stick. [...] Dad said you had a falling out with Sylvia. | |
| Mermaids Singing 149: ‘You look like shit on a stick.’ ‘Never mind me.’. |
(orig. US) an important person, a person who thinks that they are important.
| (con. 1950s) Unit Pride (1981) 218: ‘Ain’t that shit of wheels?’ Dewey said, watching them go. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 353: shit on wheels. Very remarkable; often ironic as applied to people who are not as good as they think they are. |
(US) to comply immediately.
| Strange Peaches 344: ‘If you’re a gringo and got money, they’ll snap shit at the big hotels in Mexico City or Acapulco’. |
a general intensifier.
| (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 55: If Jerry hadn’t taken all his stuff down to the Somme, we’d be shelled to shit in half-an-hour. | |
| Call It Sleep (1977) 338: Leo, followed, brushed past him toward the closed door. ‘Hope t’ shit it opens.’. | |
| Far from the Customary Skies 220: I swear to shit I couldn’t remember. | |
| in Erotic Muse (1992) 360: My girl Marylou, queen of all the acrobats, / The things that she will do will drive a man to shit. | |
| letter 25 Oct. in Proud Highway (1997) 406: I just wish to shit I had somebody within 500 miles capable of giving me one. | |
| Oz 20 31/1: His face is really just beat to shit. | |
| Semi-Tough 162: I was utterly shocked—shocked all to shit—at who T. J. had with him. | |
| Stand (1990) 918: He’s beat to shit. | |
| Fields of Fire (1980) 71: Radio’s torn to shit. | |
| News-Press (For Mysers, FL) 7 Oct. 14/2: A guy stepped on a booby trap and was blown to shit. | |
| Blow Your House Down 56: Ah well. Be a lot of girls go hungry to shit if that caught on. | |
| No Surrender 55: But y’ shouldn’t get beaten t’ shit just f’ bein’ a fool. | |
| At End of Day (2001) 139: Come home at night, exhausted, beat to shit. | |
| Plainclothes Naked (2002) 112: The three plunked themselves on the hood of a beat-to-shit pickup. | |
| (con. 1990s) A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 406: They’re not used to the potency of street heroin as compared to the cut-to-shit heroin they have been getting in prison. | |
| Bad Sex on Speed 58: The chipped-to-shit pipe [...] so hot she needed an over mitt to hold it. | |
| Guardian 25 Oct. 7/2: ‘We’ve been shot to shit’. | |
| Widespread Panic 133: I’m beat-to-shit busy [...] Big Steve’s [...] beat-to-shit bandaged and mummified. | |
| Back to the Dirt 128: ‘[P]laying in the dirt one minute [...] blowing you and your buddies to shit the next’. |
(US black) interfering, ‘poking one’s nose in’.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 up in someone’s shit Definition: not minding ones own business, interfering in the affairs of others. Example: Bitch, why you all up in my shit! | |
| ‘Unconfirmed Reports’ Wire ser. 5 ep. 2 [TV script] It’s your people up in my shit. [...] Motherfuckers from my own city. |
(N.Z.) facing serious trouble.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
(US campus) in large quantities.
| Campus Sl. Fall 6: out the ass – in large quantities [...] Also up the shit, out the butt, up the bazooka. |
(US) what’s going on, what’s happening?
| On the Yard (2002) 253: ‘What’s the shit?’ Caterpillar asked. ‘Nothing much.’. |
(US black) in agreement, supportive.
| ‘I Don’t Like’ 🎵 Them youngins with the shits, they be totin’ pipe. |
(US) to be wholly unemotional, to refuse to react.
| Thief 118: Honest law-abiding citizen. Wouldn’t say ‘shit’ if I had a mouthful. Carrying a Bible in my hip pocket. | |
| Brahmin Arrangement 155: Your Boy Scout [i.e. an Internal Revenue employee] was a real straight. He wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful. | |
| Quiet Fire 65: Paul weas a milktoast who wouldn’t say ‘shit’ if he had a mouthful. | |
| Guest of an Ally 44: [A] diminutive, cherubic sort of guy, who wouldn’t say shit if her had a mouthful. | |
| Tink Wilson 476: Ross is soi quiet [...] he wouldn't say ‘shit’ if he had a mouthful. | |
| Devil All the Time 47: ‘You sure we’re talking about the same guy? The one I know wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful’. |
In exclamations
an excl., usu. used to indicate one’s mild annoyance.
| (con. early 1950s) Valhalla 220: ‘Mama-san, for shit’s sake,’ Poke said wearily. | |
| letter 11 March in Proud Highway (1997) 442: For shit’s sake stop calling me a ‘liberal’. | |
| Sneaky People (1980) 210: ‘How many’s that make now?’ ‘Shit sake, seven,’ said Vinnie. | |
| Stories (1985) 356: ‘For shit’s sake!’ she said. | |
| Family Arsenal 239: I’m going to get anorexia again, for shit sake. | |
| Blow Fly (2004) 94: Oh, for shit’s sake, I’m gonna call you Benton. |
a general excl. of dismissal.
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 93: Shut up and go plait your shit! | |
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 219: Ernie told the Greencoat to go and plait his own droppings. | |
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 149: [W]e all [...] zip our yaps and wait for the down little urger to either own up or tell Big Oscar to go an plait his shit or something trickier, maybe. |
(US) an excl. of surprise, euph. as I’ll be dipped (in it) .
| And When She Was Bad 188: I’d be dipped if I could see how the portly, pink old party had done it. | |
| 69 Barrow Street 30: Talbot threw back his head and roared. ‘I’ll be dipped in it,’ he said. | |
| Meanwhile, Back at the Front 2: The casualty stared happily at his leg. ‘I’ll be dipped in shit. I’ll be the only man in history got a Purple Heart on the way to a whorehouse’. | |
| Analog Science Fiction 98 37: Well I’ll be dipped in shit [...] Congratulations! That’s terrific. | |
| (con. 1970) 13th Valley (1983) n.p.: ‘Well I’ll be dipped in shit,’ Garbageman said. ‘Go git the LT.’ ‘I’ll git um, Pop,’ a third soldier volunteered. ‘I’ll git um but I’ll be dipped in shit, too’. | |
| A Second Browser’s Dict. 248: Well, I’ll be dipped in shit! | |
| False Stature 176: ” He was startled by the bellowing voice. ‘I’ll be dipped in shit!’. | |
| Twitter 1 Mar. 🌐 Well, I’ll be dipped: #WordByWord has been chosen as one of Amazon’s top ten best books of March! |
a sarcastic retort of dismissal.
| A World of Good 133: ‘I’m hit,’ I sobbed. ‘Like shit you are. Get up’. | |
| Same Old Grind 155: ‘I’m going on the road.’ ‘Like shit you are! Not without me!’. | |
| Cat’s Eye (1989) 370: ‘That was years ago,’ I say. ‘Thousands of years ago. It wasn’t important.’ ‘Like shit,’ he says. | |
| Rude Behavior 403: ‘[T]he important thing is just to be here, isn’t it?’ ‘Like shit.’ . |
see separate entry.
used as non-specific excl.
| Rivers of Blood 27: He would say, ‘Shit, you don't know what you talking about!’ . | |
| Brother Ray 110: I rap at the door. ‘Yeah?’ ‘It’s Brother Ray.’ ‘Come in, man. Shit! Come on in, Ray, and help us sing’. | |
| (con. c.1945) Life in Jazz 175: He said, ‘You going to quit the band?’ I said, ‘Shit, yeah. I’m going to quit the band’. | |
| (con. 1930s) You Call It Sports 24: ‘Shit, if he wins two national championships, we’ll rename the goddamn library after him!’ . | |
| (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 15: ‘Shit, Lach, fair go. You think I’m in this game for fun?’. |
(US) a mild excl.
| (con. 1975–6) Steel Toes 13: Shit howdy, don’t got no fuckin’ teeth, just keep on gummin’ at your organ. |
(US campus) a general excl. of annoyance.
| Sl. U. |
(N.Z.) an excl. of regret, sorrow.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 186: shit oh dear/oh dearie oh Exclamation of regret, if not lamentation, eg. ‘Bowled for a duck first ball in both innings – shit oh dearie oh’. |
(US) excl. of pleasure.
| ‘Dixie Dugan’ in http://tijuanabibles.org 🌐 U-m-m - Sweet shit - Oh, boy. |