shiner n.1
1. in pl., money [the distinction between this sense and the pl. of sense 2 is not always clear].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 118: The Count [...] returns, according to his Promise, bringing a Purse full of Shiners. | |
| The Minor 53: Come: shuffle thy brains [...] To let a lord of lands want shiners, ’tis a shame. | |
| Capuchin in Works (1799) II 395: Has he the shiners, d’ye think? | |
| Choice of Harlequin I viii: First you touch the shiners — the number up — you break. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | ‘The Irish Morsho’ North Country Maid 4: They threw down the shiners the reckoning to pay. | |
| ‘Meg of Wapping’ Jovial Songster 70: So she popp’d off, and Tom [...] Spent the shiners of old Meg of Wapping. | |
| Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 27: Who knows but, if coax’d, he may shell out the shiners? | |
| Microscope (Albany, NY) 22 May n.p.: The Dutchmen in Albany are not so weak and illiterate as to throw away their shiners for the trash of a Cockney. | |
| Turpin’s Ride to York I iii: I’m going to propose a plan, rather out of our way, but still the shiners are to be got by it. | |
| ‘The Bridle Cull’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 140: Then, my blades, when you’re bush’d, and must have the swag, / Walk into tattlers, shiners, and never fear the lag. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Feb. 3/2: Bright clinking shiners, must I part with ye? | |
| ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: Money – the bare, plain, simple word itself [...] might have sufficed, yet we substitute for it – tin, rhino, blunt, rowdy, stumpy, dibbs, browns, stuff, ready, mopusses shiners [etc.]. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Ticket-of-Leave Man 9: ‘I dare say he’ll be flash with the shiners now.’ ‘And flush of flimsies.’. | |
| Slaver’s Adventures 178: We want the shiners which was found aboard of the Spaniard divided among us. | |
| Brooklyn Dly Eagle (NY) 11 Dec. 4/7: ‘The Ballad of the Bunco Man’ [...] [He] garnered in the shiners / In a manner that was queer. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 14/3: And so well did they succeed, that they picked out a noted ‘suspect,’ backed him heavily for a coming event, and then raked in quite a plethoric pool of shiners. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 24 June 1/4: There’s Shaft, who calls for Gatling guns, / To bring him in the shiners. | |
| Houndsditch Day by Day 122: She subsekervently vent and buzzed me for a bit o’ shinus what vhas in my ofercoat pocket. | |
| Bluefield Daily Tel. (WV) 11 Mar. 4/2: In addition [...] the following [names for money] are given: [...] Shiners. | |
| Wild Tribes of London in Illus. Police News 22 Feb. 12/4: If it warnt for such as i you wouldn’t have one half of the shiners you’ve got locked up in your money chests’. | |
| Ulysses 404: Stunned like seeing as how no shiners is acoming, Underconstumble? |
2. a gold coin, spec. a sovereign or guinea.
| ‘Sally Mac Gee’ in I (1975) 242: With fifty bright shiners he came on to court me. | |
| Caleb Williams (1966) 243: If therefore you will give us them there fifteen shiners, why snug is the word. | |
| Sporting Mag. June XX 138/2: Milo [...] shakes his conqueror by the paw, gives him a shiner, and drives home. | |
| ‘The Flour Clubs’ Garland of New Songs 7: Some thousands of good yellow shiners. | |
| ‘Who Cares’ in Universal Songster I 12/2: He comes home with shiners galore. | |
| Paul Clifford II 215: I gave the guinea to the waiter at the White Hart yesterday; the dog brought it back to me to-day, and I was forced to change it with my last shiner. | |
| Oliver Twist (1966) 189: Fagin [...] is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it’s safely done from the outside? | |
 | Wilmington Jrnl (MC) 6 Aug. 1/3: Let your Uncle Johnny put his potato stealer (hand) into that hat, and tickle the chins of them are shiners a little! | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 25 Mar. 1/3: Bets were offered, [...] 10 to 1, in beautiful shiners. | |
| G’hals of N.Y. 41: He tendered her one of his ‘shiners,’ and having received his change, he lit one of his dozen. | |
| Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act III: Five thousand shiners, p’raps. | |
| Pittsburgh Gaz. 29 Apr. 4/2: As soon as the ‘cow jockey’ got his hands on the ‘shiner’ he was chilled to the heart to find that it was a base fraud. | |
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 265: I fancied the old people finding the five shiners were only duffers. | |
| Deacon Brodie III tab.V ii: A free pardon and fifty shiners down. | |
| ‘Our Little Nipper’ 🎵 I’ve got a little nipper, when ’e talks / I’ll lay yer forty shiners to a quid / You’ll take ’im for the father, me the kid. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 72: Shiners, gold coins. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Aug. 4/8: Scooping in the notes and shiners / At the Cup. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 2 Mar. 11/3: A cool five hundred shiners. | |
| Nott. Eve. Post 30 Apr. 6/3: Lesser known nicknames for sovereigns [...] ‘chip’ [...] ‘canary,’ ‘nob,’ ‘old Mr Gory’ [...] and ‘shiner’. |
3. (also shinker) a black eye.
| Walsingham II 161: ‘Sport your glass-blinkers, old grizzlepate,’ cried the inebriated prisoner, ‘and look steadily while I dazzle your optics with a brace of shiners.’. | |
| Battle with the Slum 98: A brazen-looking woman with a black eye, who answered the question of the officer, ‘Where did you get that shiner?’ with a laugh. | |
| (con. 1918) Mattock 266: He had a shiner and a swelled nose. | |
| Gang 267: Shiners, shinkers—black eyes. | |
| Put on the Spot 93: Under his puffed-up left eye was a purple shiner. | |
| High Sierra in (1984) 336: Her left eye was nearly closed and it was surrounded by a swollen purplish bruise [...] ‘Who gave you that shiner?’. | |
| Augie March (1996) 82: A person who goes out for a peaceful walk is liable to come home with a shiner or bloody nose. | |
| Oh! To be in England (1985) 381: It was almost worth a shiner to see Edith like that. | |
| Great Santini (1977) 441: Did he give you that shiner? | |
| (con. mid-1950s) This Boy’s Life 115: [H]is boy Jack had hung a real shiner on the Gayle kid . | |
| London Fields 317: Guy had never had much to do with pain. Except that shiner: pure instinct – the dear fist. | |
| Salesman 307: I meant to get a bit of steak to cure that shiner I have. | |
| Crumple Zone 180: You got magic touch. Left Fergie lookin’ like a panda in love. Double shiner. | |
| Money Shot [ebook] The double shiner helped too, and so did the broken nose. | |
| Turning (2005) 151: Her shiner was still puffy. | |
| (con. 1943) Irish Fandango [ebook] The huge shiner and the split in her bottom lip. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Ringer [ebook] n.p.: I take a deck in the mirror and see there’s some bruising around my jaw; there’ll be a nice shiner on the way as well. | |
| Hard Bounce [ebook] ‘You look at your eye lately?’ She brushed her fingers lightly over her shiner. | |
| Young Team 65: His face looks a bit fucked, n he’s git a shiner ae a black eye. | |
| (con. 1991-94) City of Margins 38: Mikey went to the funeral with the fat purple shiner he got from the cop’s bat. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 810: [H]e laid one on her... punched her... that’s where the shiner came from. |
4. (orig. UK Und.) a mirror, esp. as used by card-sharps to spy on otherwise hidden hands.
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Doings in London 254: If they can prig a ‘shiner’ (a looking-glass), they immediately transport it to the neighbourhood of Wentworth Street, where the Jews knock off the frames [...] to destroy all identity. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 91: SHINER, a looking-glass. | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859]. |
| Keys to Crookdom 244: ‘Shiners,’ which reflect the faces of cards being dealt through mirrors, are listed in various forms. The ring-shiner consists of a tiny mirror which can be attached to a ring [...] One type of shiner fits a pipe [...] A harmless-looking match box is a shiner in disguise. | |
| ‘Vocab. of Bums’ in AS IV:5 344: Shiner—A mirrorlike surface on a finger ring, enabling a card dealer to see the reflected face of every card as he deals it. | |
| ‘’Twixt Night ’n’ Dawn’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 12 Nov. 11/5: I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Mex fell out with one of those shiners [...] the kind one buys in barber shops for two bits. | |
| Big Con 264: The insideman [is] using a shiner so that he can see what he deals the mark. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| No Hiding Place! 192/1: Shiners. Small reflectors used by card- sharpers. | |
| Complete Guide to Gambling. | |
| Venetian Blonde (2006) 154: I have played against sleeve holdouts and readers and daub and shiners. |
5. a silver dollar.
| Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 14 n.p.: [They] made there [sic] exit with a shiner in their fob . | |
| Fashion II i: Tiff will work every shiner into the concern. | |
| S.F. Call 26 Mar. n.p.: [He] went to fight the furious tiger, / Went to fight the beast at faro, / And was cleaned out so completely / That he lost his every mopus, / Every single speck of pewter, / Every solitary shiner. | |
| Boy’s Own Paper 15 July 658: We’ll have the bronchos, and we’ll have the swag, for Baron Rinkie [...] doesn’t travel without the shiners. | |
| By Bolo and Krag 21: The 4,000 shiners I was going to buy the farm with. | |
| From Coast to Coast with Jack London 114: Using our pocket knives each of us tackled one of the shiners. We dug and pried away endeavoring to lift the dollars from their receptacles. But the cement with which the coins were fastened had become as adamant as granite. | |
| Ulysses 404: Stunned like seeing as how no shiners is acoming. |
6. something first-rate, i. e. which fig. ‘shines’; usu. as regular shiner[cite 1838 suggests the shininess of fresh fish].
| Windsor & Eton Exp. 9 Jan. 1/5: is father gave him a basket of sprats to sell, with instructions not to dispose of [them] under sixpence, as they were ‘regular shiners’. | |
| Royal Cornwall Gaz. 1 June 6/3: No.6 bill (a regular shiner) — ink from London [...] come and see it. | |
| Buckingham Exp. 8 Jan. 4/5: 1887 will be recorded in our national history as a ‘regular shiner’. |
7. a young woman who poses as being susceptible to flattery (presumably in the hope of gain).
| Cornishman 14 Nov. 7/1: A ‘shiner’ is a philanthropic young lady who is willing to bestow her smiles on smooth-tongued visitors in return for flattering words. |
8. a silk hat.
| On Angling 179: A tall black hat, or one of the genus called shiner, I do not recommend [F&H]. | |
| Hull Dly Mail (Yorks) 2 Nov. 4/1: The Sweep and the ‘Shiner’ [...] the bridegroom [...] wore a top hat. | |
| Daily Tel. 31 Oct. 10/6: The little man with his tall shiner [F&H]. |
9. a diamond, or other jewel; also in pl.
| Bushrangers 54: If we get rid of the shiners, we leave for the mines for a few months, and then say that we have made a lucky hit; and who is to deny it? | |
| Queenstown Free Press 15 Jan. n.p.: When they dug it up they at once came to the conclusion it was a real shiner. | |
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 75: Various sums which a three-bulb plant in San Francisco had dished out to me for my sundry and diverse De Beers shiners. | |
| More Ex-Tank Tales 52: The Kimberley shiners that had been rusting away. | |
| Wash. Post 10 Dec. 4/5: A diamond is now ‘ice’ or a ‘spark fawney’. It is no longer referred to as a ‘shiner’ or a ‘headlight’ or a ‘rock.’. | |
| White Moll 86: ‘What’s the haul size up at?’ he demanded. ‘Anything in the safe besides the shiners?’. | |
| Chicago May (1929) 260: Sparklers, sparks, shiners, stones, ice (English), etc—diamonds. | |
| Nine Tailors (1984) 193: Want to know where those shiners are? |
10. (Aus.) an attractive person.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Dec. 34/2: I mean the girl I was first engaged to. She was a fair shiner. |
11. (US tramp) a ten-cent piece.
| Milk and Honey Route 213: Shiner – A ten-cent-piece. |
12. (W.I.) in pl., sparkly clothes or fabrics.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Official Dancehall Dict. 47: Shiners lamé or sparkly fabrics: u. to dress up in shiners. |