sham, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sham n.¹

[SE shame or shamed; thus this anecdote: ‘The word Sham is true Cant of the Newmarket Breed. It is contracted of ashamed. The native Signification is a Town Lady of Diversion, in Country Maid’s Cloaths, who to make good her Disguise, pretends to be so sham’d! Thence it became proverbial, when a maimed Lover was laid up, or looked meager, to say he had met with a Sham’ (R. North, Examen, 1740)]

(UK Und.)

1. a trick, a hoax, a fraud [subsequent use is SE].

1669		R. L’Estrange Miscellaneous Fables (1692) CCCLXXIV 342: The Gifts of Nature are beyond all the Shams and Shuffles in the World.
1688		J. Crowne City Politicks I i: A rank sham o’ both sides.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Sham c. a Cheat, or Trick.
1707		Humours of a Coffee-House 10 Oct. 34: What is the meaning of all this noise about Sodomy about Town? Is there any Truth in it; or is it only a White Fryars Sham, to gull Alley Gossips.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 318/1: sham, fourberie.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 158: I’m not going in for a cynical homily about social hypocrisies; I think ‘shams,’ and ‘wind-bags,’ and ‘snobberies,’ have been a little overdone.
1882		A. Trumble Mysteries of N.Y. 9: [A] way [...] of utilizing shams so deftly that they deceive the most expert.
1890		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Not a Bit Like It’ Sporting Times 15 Feb. 1/3: From a child he had always been sucked in by sham.

2. a fake shirtfront.

1710

A Society of Ladies Female Tatler (1992) (110) 199: Squire Widgeon wore shams.

3. something intended to impose upon, delude or disappoint.

1740		R. North Examen 317: Then, by way of Sham [...] the Plot Party gave out that Parliament had a Design to cover their own Guiltiness.
c.1790		‘A Drop of Dram’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 6: Your pills or your bolus’s, or doctor’s but a sham.
1872		‘Song of the Times’ Farmer of Chappaqua Songster 73: We’re sick of show and sham.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 419: Screeving ‘shams’ and ‘delicates’ for begging-letter imposters.

4. in pl., false shirt sleeves (see cit. 1785).

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Shams; false sleeves to put on over a dirty shirt, or false sleeves with ruffles to put over a plain one.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

5. (UK Und.) counterfeit money.

1871–82

B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.

In phrases

cut a sham (v.)

to hoax, to trick.

1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia I i: I’ll speak a bold word, and he shall cut a sham or banter with the best wit or poet of ’em all.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.

put a sham upon (v.) (also put upon the sham)

to trick, to hoax, to defraud.

1680		E. Hickeringill Reflections on Late Libel etc. 19: ’Tis but a Tale, and a Story of his own making, like all the rest of the Sham’s he would gladly put upon the Author of that Sermon.
1683		Dialogue between a Yorkshire Alderman and a Salamanca Doctor 2: Was it not you and your Accomplice that put me upon the Sham to bring him into the Plot?
1687		T. Brown Saints in Uproar in Works (1760) I 81: You must put these shams upon blockheads and not upon me.
1727		Defoe Hist. and Reality of Apparitions 1417: He [...] seem’d to laugh that she should first put such a Sham upon him, and then to tell such a formal Story to make it good.

sham n.1

In phrases

sham n.¹