Green’s Dictionary of Slang

shekels n.

also sheckles, sheks
[Heb. shekel, a Babylonian, hence Heb. monetary unit; ult. Heb. sh?q?l, to weigh]

1. money; thus pull/rake in the shekels, to prosper.

[[UK]J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 405: If a word be worth one shekel, silence is worth two].
[US]L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 47: Shekels, money.
[US]‘A High Private’ Man who was not a Colonel 8: The human mind is so constituted that it hankers after shekels, when it has done work.
[US]Cincinnati Enquirer 7 Sept. 10/7: Wealth, Ore, Dust, Rocks, Spondulicks, Shekels, Ducats, Nicks, Flimsies, Filthy Lucre, Trash, Shiners, Shinnies--are the synonyms of money.
[US]Brooklyn Dly Eagle (NY) 11 Dec. 4/7: ‘The Ballad of the Bunco man’ He was a festive bunco sharp / And had a little plan / For catching shekels on the Q / From the verdant countryman.
[US](con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 264: They’ve got all their own money back. and all of ourn but a shekel or two, besides.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 20 June 6/3: The defendant escaped from custody […] and appealed to the Petty Sessions Court, where the judgment was reversed, and the financier called upon to produce shekels to the extent of £4 10s.
[UK]Music Hall & Theatre Rev 17 Aug. 6/2: We trust Nye will come out with no end of shekels.
[US]A.C. Gunter Miss Nobody of Nowhere 278: You would have half the money changers of England against you; they always make a pretty long and hard battle for their shekels.
[US]A. Bierce letter 16 Apr. in Pope Letters of Ambrose Bierce (1922) 30: I can’t hold you and inject sheckels into your pocket.
[Aus]Truth (Sydney) 29 July 3/6: And he leered a leer, did the auctioneer, as he shovelled the shekels in.
[UK]Mirror of Life 28 Apr. 3/2: Alf has the happy faculty of gathering in the shekels where others would go broke.
[US]‘Billy Burgundy’ Toothsome Tales Told in Sl. 29: Elfie found herself without shelter or shekels in Kankakee.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 4/7: His win, perchance, would leave them shekels short.
[UK]Sporting Times 11 Feb. 4/1: He made me put a couple of shekels on a horse which also ran.
[UK]D. Stewart Wild Tribes of London in Illus. Police News 22 Feb. 12/3: ‘We all love de sheckles, mein frient’.
[UK]J. Buchan Thirty-Nine Steps (1930) 7: The capitalists would rake in the shekels, and make fortunes by buying up wreckage.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 320: I know where he’s gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers. – Who? says I. – Bloom, he says, the courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on Throwaway and he’s gone to gather in the shekels.
[US]C. Sandburg People, Yes 165: The mazuma, the jack, the shekels, the kale.
[US]A.E. Duckett ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 25 July 7/1: [A]llee samee, Chink is pulling in the shekels.
[US]Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 27 Jan. 7/1: A half-dozen other ‘angels’ will go to court with claims of lost shekels.
[Aus]L. Glassop We Were the Rats 84: ‘Smash, dough, fiddlies, coin, tin, hay, oot, shekels, sponduliks,’ said Gordon. ‘I’m still the highest paid member of this company.’.
[US]Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 127: A haven for free enterprisers who vied with each other for the woodsmen’s shekels.
[US]T. Berger Reinhart in Love (1963) 81: If you were half the man our roomer [...] is, you’d of got a defense job and made the shekels rather than running off to the Army.
[Aus]F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 56: ‘Listen Sheckles,’ he says, ‘you are always yak-yaking about how much money you’re making’.
[UK]A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 365: There’d them shoving it up the old kazerzy [...] very painful for my shekels and sherbet.
[Aus]J. McNeill Old Familiar Juice (1973) 82: [T]he wogs had [...] anything you wanted if you could weigh in the sheckles.
[Aus]K. Gilbert Living Black 28: We didn’t get much wage but at least it was a roof and a bed and a feed and a few shekels that we got for our pay.
[Ire]H. Leonard Out After Dark 168: Yes, I got the readies, the few shekels.
[UK]J. Cameron It Was An Accident 12: Plenty shekels in it.
[UK]N. Barlay Crumple Zone 225: Cos that’s what he’s after innit, all the sheks Dennie owed.
[Ire]P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 95: I end up [...] wondering how many shekels it’d cost to keep something like that interested.
[UK]K. Richards Life 480: [He] makes sure that at the end of the day the right shekels end up in the right pot.
[Ire]P Howard Braywatch 71: Who am I kidding pretending that I’m doing this for the shekels?

2. (US) dollars.

[US]‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 6: And the only prize he’s going home with is a teddy bear that cost me three shekels per, wholesale.