Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also shank up) to stab with a knife; also fig.; thus shanking n., a stabbing.

1949		Hal Ellson Duke viii: Shanked – knifed.
1953		W. Brown Run, Chico, Run (1959) 9: They’d fix this cat all right. They’d shank him and clean him out. Then maybe they’d give Chico a buck for putting the finger on the guy.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 114: E-magine that cat shanking me like that.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 114: A guy that’s been shanked, shot, jacked, brass-knuckled.
1987		Ice-T ‘Six in the Morning’ 🎵 Didn’t want trouble but the shit must fly / Squabbled this sucker shanked ’em in the eye.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 185: There had been a double shanking on the Yard the day before.
1993		Dr Dre ‘Lil’ Ghetto Boy’ 🎵 I guess Ese’s way deep, shanked two in they chest.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 shank Definition: [...] 2. a weapon for stabbing. Example: He shanked me good!
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 163/1: shank (also shank up) v. to stab.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 37: Your job here [i.e. in prison] is to lie, cheat, steal [...] shank, sock, fuck, and suck each other.
2008		Times 10 Apr. 15: Jurors in both trials had to have the patois of the gang culture explained [...] as they heard evidence of teenagers ‘shanking’, or stabbing, their victims.
2011		G. Knight Hood Rat 120: There’s no question he can go to hospital with a gunshot wound. Same if he’d been shanked in the leg.
2013		J. Stahl Happy Mutant Baby Pills 65: I’m going to hike your legs up and shank you in the shower while I fuck you.
2016		Independent 5 Jan. 🌐 There is the edgy street language of gangs which has given us shank and jook for stab; and merk to hurt or humiliate.
2017		Eve. Standard 4 July 8/4: ‘Don’t mess with him, he’ll shank you up’.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] ‘Where’s this guy now?’ I said. ‘In the ground [...] Shanked thirty times at Lewis in Buckeye, Arizona’.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 33: An inmate called Glitch raped and shanked a fish newly dubbed Brownsville [...] Glitch popped the shank into Brownsville’s right eye and blinded it.

2. (US campus) to harm.

1997–2000		College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Shank 1. (verb) To hurt; to attack; to spank.
1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 25: Shank: To cause harm.