Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) eccentric, crazy; also as n., an eccentric.

1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 5 Aug. 1/1: Many simple and ignorant people were led by the incongruities that so peculiarly distinguished John’s appeals to the support of his fellow-colonists [...] to believe that he was ‘not all there;’ but (following the same style of phraseology) he was ‘not one shingle short’ - his brilliant addresses were invariably wound up with the significant hint, ‘All for the nimble ninepence’.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 8 Sept. 2/4: One Master Patrick Neill, a young gentleman evidently minus a shingle.
1851		Empire (Sydney) 23 Apr. 4/1: A Shingle Short — Mary Ann Pusey was brought up for striking a lady [...] without any assignable reason.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes III 17: Let no man having, in common phrase, ‘a shingle short’ try this country. He will pass his days in Tarban Creek Asylum!
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Aug. 3/3: Considering that Cowan must have lost a shingle, Mackenzie arrested him.
1861		Colonist (Nelson, NZ) 15 Oct. 2/6: He should very soon begin to think that those who advanced him money were, in vulgar parlance ‘a shingle short’ .
1869		W.M. Howell Diggings and the Bush 32: She must be ‘a shingle short,’ what did she mean?
1874		Taranaki Herald (NZ) 16 Sept. 2/4: People in court thought the woman was a relative of the magistrate, or perhaps thet she was ‘a shingle short,’ but no one interfered.
1880		Southland Times 2/8: [Law report] Julius Seehof, hotelkeeper, deposed that he had know accused for some time. For several weeks the only food he had eaten was cooked potatoes. Thought be was a ‘shingle short’.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer I 147: The overseer rode off, puzzled as to whether the new hand was laughing at him or was ‘a single short’.
1895		H. Lawson ‘The Fate of the Fat Man’s Son’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 280: The Fat Man’s Son was an Anarchist, a couple of shingles short.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Dec. 24/4: ‘Rough-rider’ on ‘Sydney shingle-shorts’: / Sydney is more cursed with these than any other city I know of.
1902		C, Poole ‘Wattle Flat’ in Bulletin Reciter 1880–1901 80: When I’m wanting information [...] of any sort— / Of course, I’ll take it from a man that’s got a shingle short!
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 22 June 3/4: ‘Oh, I'm so glad! [...]’ cried the delighted gent with a shingle off.
1908		N.Z. Truth 22 Feb. 2/5: An unfortunate creature [...] whose mental condition might be described as a shingle short.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Dec. 13/3: He reckoned that the whole outfit was several shingles short, and he wasn’t convinced until he was shown the newspapers. […].
1922		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 2 Nov. 5/2: A tabbie wot wud pull yew on / Wud wanter be well potty, / Or else she’d be wot they call gone, / A shingle short, or dotty.
1928		Truth (Wellington) 1 Nov. 1/2: M Kropecsy, the Parisian hair expert, says: ‘The shingle will be longer.’ Goodo! Some of our flappers are a shingle short.
1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 85: Mum and Billy Rocca both say Lord Freddie may be a shingle short.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Gus Tomlins’ in Me And Gus (1977) 106: He was a shingle short, in some ways.
1941		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 11 Feb. 2/3: I don’t believe any one of the residents think that I did, unless they are a shingle short.
1966		P. White Solid Mandala (1976) 146: Waldo had to have a quiet laugh. As if he were the one a shingle short!
1972		G.W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 109: A simpleton is a shingle short in New Zealand.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 98: If you suspect their grip on reality is tenuous, they’re not the full quid, they’re a shingle short, or they’ve got kangaroos in their top paddock.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 101/1: shingle short a mentally deficient.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

2. in fig. use, deficient, lacking in (but not mentally deficient).

1910

Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Sept. 11/1: The Law of Victoria has just discovered that it is a shingle short, in a manner of speaking, in a question concerning motor-cars.