Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a venereal wart; thus shankered adj., afflicted with venereal warts [20C use is Aus.].

c.1660		‘An Historical Ballad’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) V 22: And where e’re she swives, she scatters diseases, / And a shanker’s a damn’d loveing thing where it seizes.
1679		J. Oldham ‘Upon the Author of a Play call’d Sodom’ in Rochester Poems on Several Occasions (1680) 130: Vile Sot! who clapt with Poetry art sick, / And void’st Corruption, like a Shanker’d Prick.
1684		Rochester (attrib.) Sodom Epilogue: Thus wee are made pregnant, while base dirty drabs / ffling Sperm on mount and their engender Crabbs, / Buboes and shankers, pocky noudes & Scabbs.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Shanker, a little Scab or Pox on the Nut or Glans of the Yard.
c.1700		‘Panegyrick upon Cundums’ n.p.: Happy the man, who in his pocket keeps, / Whether with green or scarlet ribband bound, / A well-made tunalum – he, nor dreads the ills / Of shankers, or cordee, or buboes dire!
1713		W. King York Spy 45: Let the Sot, with Buboes rot, And never want a Shanker.
1725		View of London & Westminster (2nd part) 35: Madam Jolt [Is Visited] By the Right Honourable the Lord Shanker.
1731		Swift ‘A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed’ in Works II (1752) 333: With gentlest touch she next explores / Her shankers, issues, running sores .
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 491: But ajax gave him two such spankers, / They smarted worse than nodes and shankers.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
a.1930		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 70: She gave me the shankers, likewise the runners too. / And in about ten days the blue balls was in view.
1943		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 581: I went to the doctor and told him I was sick, / The first thing he said was, Let me see your prick. / I showed him and I saw him as he winked his eye, / He said, You have the shankers on your root hog or die.

2. a button, as worn by a costermonger to decorate his clothing.

1866

J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 48: ‘Plain pearly shankers’ were Fashion’s latest edict.