Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) a photographer; both a professional and an enthusiastic amateur.

1939		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 24 June 16: Louise Beavers [...] posed for many a ‘shutterbug’.
1940		Charleston (West VA) Daily Mail 25 Dec. 4/3: ‘Shutterbug’ and ‘snapper’ are, of course, two of the many terms for amateur photographer.
1949		A. Hynd We Are the Public Enemies 58: Clyde and Bonnie were not only firearm fans. They were shutter bugs, too.
1956		Argus (Melbourne) 26 May 32/6: The ‘shutterbugs’ [...] had a grand uninhibited night.
1966		Aus. Women’s Wkly 23 Mar. 93/2: Pictorial Queensland. A photgraphic safari tour for ‘shutterbugs’.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 43: It is technically feasible in an age when the amateur shutterbug can shoot halitosis in pitch dark.
1981		Aus. Women’s Wkly 11 Nov. 141/1: The boat called in at assorted tropical islands where shutterbug Eric [...] took these photographs.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 168: The shutterbug’s accent skipped lightly over his words.
1999		Indep. Rev. 28 Aug. 5: Grinning inanely for the in-house shutterbug.
1999		N. Stephenson Cryptonomicon 642: Then the pile of photos begins to look depressingly large. [...] Waterhouse was evidently a shutterbug of sorts.
2001		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 15 Apr. 29: The work of controversial shutterbug Bob Richardson.
2003		A.N. LeBlanc Random Family 89: He wanted Coco to document each day [...] with photographs. Coco loved the assignment; she’d always been a shutterbug.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 307: Arvo’s a shifty shutterbug [...] sneaking snaps in girls’ locker rooms.

(US black) a cinema projectionist.

1947

M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl.

(US) a prostitute working from a room with shutters, attracting customers from the street.

1965		K. Marlowe Mr Madam (1967) 155: Betty had been an old shutter-girl in the French Quarter. [...] During the Depression, girls like Betty sat in their rooms with the shutters half-open and ran a coin up and down the slats to attract the attention of any passing male. ‘Want a nice girl? Twenty five cents!’.
1984		Miami News (FL) 15 Dec. 39/2: He remebered the ‘Shutter Girls,’ prostitutes who would whisper to passers-by from behind the shutters.

a robbery committed by boring through a shutter, removing a pane of glass and reaching through for anything to steal.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 265: shutter-racket the practice of robbing houses, or shops, by boring a hole in the window shutters, and taking out a pane of glass.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

one who specializes in such robberies.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.