Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to sell illicit alcohol.

1876		Edinburgh Eve. News 13 Dec. 3/6: Susan Lynch [...] was found guilty of shebeening [...] and fined £15.
1882		Edinburgh Eve. News 28 Nov. 2/3: James Carrel was charged with shebeening in his house [...] Witnesses [...] stated that they got whisky from Carrel and paid for it.
1889		Western Mail (Wales) 24 June 3/8: To shebeen, therefore, is to sell liquor slyly in this manner [i.e. illegally].
1891		Portsmouth Eve. News 1 June 2/3: Shebeening. John Tyrell was fined £250 and costs for selling beer retail without a licence to navvies.
1900		Leeds Times 30 June 15/2: ‘Shebeening’ At Barnsley two miners living at Grimesthorpe were fined £50 and £20 [...] for selling intoxicating liquor without a licence.
1908		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 23 June 2/5: An Italian ice-creamm dealer was fined £50 in Glasgow to-day for Sunday shebeening [...] Five dozen bottles of beer were found on the premises.
1918		Aberdeen Jrnl 22 June 6/3: [headline] Shebeening in Inverness.
1927		Post (Lanarks.) 23 Oct. 7/4: Charged with shebeening on three separate occasions [he[] was fined £75. His wife [...] sold one and a half gills of whisky to an eleven-year-old girl.

2. (S.Afr.) to visit a shebeen.

1964

G. Gordon Four People 120: They’re up to no good, some of these people – shebeening.