Green’s Dictionary of Slang

shoe v.

lit. or fig., a kicking.

2020

Twitter 16 Mar. 🌐 Always good to see the fascist apologist and Hitler fanboy Brendan O’Neil get given a good shoeing.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

shoe one’s mule (v.)

to embezzle.

1655

‘Du Parc’ (trans.) Comical Hist. of Francion (2005) 92: He had the keeping and disposall of the moneys, and yet shod not his mule at all.

shoe the (gray) goose (v.) [? the impossibility of such a task, other than to a drink-sodden mind]

to be drunk.

1523		Skelton Colyn Cloute (1550) Aiiii: What hath lay men doe The gray gose for to shoe? [Ibid.] Bii: The gray gooes for to sho Lyke hounds of hell They crye and they yell.
c.1530		Parlament of Byrdes in Hazlitt III (1866) line 225: Who wyll smatter what euery man doose, May go helpe to shoo the goose.
1593		‘Philip Foulface’ Bacchus’ Bountie in Harleian Misc. II (1809) 303: Bacchus, as willing [...] to teach him the tricke to shue the goose.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 226: He [...] has shod the goose.

shoe the horse (v.)

to cheat one’s employer.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.