Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to find attractive or appealing, to have a fancy or affection for.

1840		Davy Crockett’s Almanack 14: I wonst had an old flame I took sumthin of a shine to [DA].
1851		J.B. Cobb Mississippi Scenes 155: I’m pretty much like the old man, only I took a sort o’ shine to old Cass [F&H].
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 141: Father took a wonderful shindy to her, for even old men can’t help liking beauty. [Ibid.] 360: Well, they all wondered how under the sun Paddy had taken such a shindy to me.
1862		T. Winthrop John Brent 17: I’ve tuk a middlin’ kind of shine to you.
1871		E. Eggleston Hoosier School-Master (1892) 155: You’re welcome to her. I never tuck no shine that air way.
1876		‘Mr. Larry O’Galligan MacFusle’s Amours’ Jolly Old Boys Comic Song Bk 334: She had the shiners for Larry, och hone.
1887		E. Custer Tenting on the Plains (rev. edn 1895) 186: Indeed, I had taken quite a shine to her.
1898		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 14 Sept. 2/3: A Bee newsboy, Willie Usher [...] struck the crowd for a ‘shine’ and they all promised to give him a job.
1906		A. Adams ‘In the Hands of His Friends’ in Cattle Brands 🌐 If she takes any special shine to a runt like you, [...] her tastes must be a heap sight sorry and depraved.
1913		Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 27 July 8/6: [US speaker] ‘A guy can’t help taking a rightaway shine to the kid’.
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 31: There is a little blonde kid in the hotel here who took a shine to me at the dance the other night.
1923		Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith (1993) 495: [She] seemed to take a shine to me right away.
1932		(con. 1917–19) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 527: [He] came back with a bottle of cognac for Joe, whom he’d taken a shine to.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 9: He had worked for the Humboldt Safe Company before his arrest, and he took a shine to me.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 138: I’ve took a real shine to you, mate.
1964		‘Return of Honky-Tonk Bud’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 64: He took a shine to Bud, the Hipcat Stud, / ’Cause Bud was mentally free.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 101: Any old ’ow, me an’ Angie took a shine to each uvver right off and started goin’ steady.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 188: He found he was taking a bit of shine to her.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 269: I think that Daphne’s taken a right shine to you.
1991		R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 79: ‘By golly, the old girl’s really taken a shine to you’.
1992		D. Jarman diary 18 Aug. Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 196: Tommy, immaculate in his Savile Row suits, took a shine to HB.
2000		Times 25 Mar. 21: Gold town takes a shine to Queen.
2006		F.X. Toole Pound for Pound 228: Once somebody takes a shine to you, I’m hittin the bricks, get me?
2010		K. Richards Life 331: Truman, for some unknown reason, took a shine to Bobby.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] Jack didn’t take much of a shine to him.
2023		A. Parks To Die in June 57: Cuthbert had taken a shine to him, steered him right a good few times.