Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK und.) the partner — married or otherwise — a professional criminal (often a brothel-keeper).

1856

Manchester Wkly Times 23 Aug. 11/3: Some are unmarried and [...] keep a jomer or sheelah (mistress) who gives out in the neighbourhood that her husband is a traveller of some description.

2. (orig. Aus.) a woman, also attrib.; for 19C uses see shaler n.

1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 16/1: Firs’ week, all say ‘welly good cook, him boshter’; nex’ week begin smell ’em tucker; thir’ week tell me go hell, no good; then sack! Shealer blanky cow!
1905		Duke Tritton’s Letter n.p.: I like meeting the Spire And Steeple. They are all nice blokes and sheilas.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 Aug. 4/8: There’s a sheelah hot in the Shamrock bar, / In Summer she’s kept on ice.
1919		C.H. Thorp Handful of Ausseys 155: You can’t expect a bloke away over here with plenty of dough not to get gay when ’e’s takin’ a sportin’ kind uv sheila about.
1922		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 2 Nov. 5/2: Shielers don’t run after looks.
1922		Healesville & Yarra Glen Guardian (Vic.) 4/4: Maria gives me the knock-down to a shyin’ little shielah.
1924		L. O’Neil ‘L’Egyptienne’ in Dinkum Aussie and Other Poems 37: I’d go to a show with me sheila, or maybe hold hands in the park.
1926		J. Doone Timely Tips For New Australians 21: SHIELAH.—A slang word for a girl.
1938		N. Lindsay Age Of Consent 174: You’re a nice little sheila, Cora.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 528: They bring him in some of them Mullanmullak niggers to prove the little sheilah aint there.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 108: She’s a nice little sheila, that Betty.
1942		Dly News (NY) 30 May 10/3: In Australia a girl is a cliner or a tom, or (not so polite) a shelia [sic] or (most impolite) a tart.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 52: I wonder if there are any Wog sheilas back in Tobruk.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 284: There are plenty of Sheilas in Palmerston.
1960		A. Burgess Doctor Is Sick (1972) 164: The singer, grasping the neck of his guitar [said] ‘You called me a sheila. I heard you distinctly’.
1960		N. Hilliard Maori Girl 127: Jokers just stand around seeing what’s going among the sheilas, and the sheilas are lined up along the wall doing the same.
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 75: ‘He took a fancy to this sheila, see’—a’course, I’m not using the Maori’s exact words, they don’t call women sheilas.
1970		B. Crump ‘A Good Keen Girl’ in Best of Barry Crump (1974) 244: Take that Roman sheila, for example, Cleopatra.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 177: We knocked around together [...] gettin’ pissed on pay night, takin’ sheilas out, all that sort of thing.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 309: Sending postcards to his dopey fuckin’ sheila.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 62: ‘We could find some sheilas,’ he said.
1989		B. Reed ‘Messman on C.E.’s Altar’ in Passing Strange (2015) 13: There were too many sorts of shirleys waiting back at his Ex-servicemen’s Club to pick a bone [...] old femmes.
1993		K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 68: Once I get residency I’ll be okay [...] Once you make an honest sheila out of me.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xxiv: The sheila cop nodded and performed, with some effort, what just managed to pass as a smile.
1999		Indep. Traveller 11 Sept. 3: If [...] ‘Brace yerself Sheila’ is all the encouragement you need, then head down under.
2000		Indep. Traveller 15 Jan. 3: There are iron Sheilas, too.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] I don’t like the sound of that [i.e. a scream]. Some poor sheila’s in bad trouble.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.
2005		Radio London 26 No v.: [advert for car insurance for women] It’s for sheilas’ wheels, man.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] ‘Good-looking sheila, that Katrina Lee’.
2010		K. Richards Life 348: I was like a right Australian old man. Sheila, where’s my fucking breakfast?
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] [T]he sheila behind the counter scoped my bulging bag.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 202: ‘He ever get any visitors?’ ‘Yeah, he did. An old sheila’.

3. attrib. use of sense 1, effeminate.

1992		M. Coleman Fatty 150: ‘Dead set can’t play. Big sheila, hates getting a hair out of place’.
2003		Bug (Aus.) Aug. 🌐 Ghoul and Stewheart sprayed this skirt, sissy, pussy, sheila stuff – or whatever moniker you fancy – in the direction of the video ref’s box.

4. (S.Afr.) a black housemaid.

1987

(con. 1950s) G. Moloi My Life 201: Here we played for ‘Sheilas’ or domestics.

5. (S.Afr.) the girlfriend of an urban gangster.

1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 81: The ducktail girls are also known as ‘quacktails’, ‘sheilahs’, and ‘pony-tails’; they act slick and smart and sophisticated; they are gaudy and brash, and quite unself-conscious [...] Ducktails and their ‘sheilahs’ not infrequently engage in assaultive and murderous behaviour.
1977		P.C. Venter Soweto 153: A sheila is a tsotsi’s girlfriend in more ways than one. If he needs money, she will work the streets for him. In the Chicago of the speak-easy days they would have called her a gangster’s moll.