Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. orig. of sailors, a veteran (usu. one who has crossed the Equator); thence an ultra-conservative, slow-witted person.

1860		Scaramento Daily Union (CA) 12 Dec. 2/4: Here is a brief extract, illustrating something of the dangers to which the marine ‘shellback’ is constantly exposed.
1864		Scarmento Daily Union (CA) 17 May 3/4: The old Copperhead patriarch [...] was heard to ask his friends what kind of a flag it was proposed to display [...] ‘The Stars and Stripes, of course,’ replied the friend. ‘I thought so,’ said the old shellback.
1873		Pacific Rural Press 4 Oct. 217/4: The tar is in his element [...] and makes the clumsiest ‘shellback’ for the time a model of grace.
1878		L.A. Herald 16 Mar. 4/1: ‘I wonder what brings old Eyre into the Exchange?’ remarked one of the shellbacks in the lobby.
1883		W.C. Russell Sailors’ Lang. xiii: The merchant seaman [...] does not apparantly blush to figure as ‘Jack Muck’ and ‘Shellback’.
1884		W.C. Russell Jack’s Courtship I 3: It takes a sailor a long time to straighten his spine and get quit of the bold sheer that earns him the name of shell-back.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Mar. 20/1: They soused him in water, and scrubbed him every day, till the period was up. Still the old shellback was groggy.
1896		‘Frederick Benton Williams’ (H.E. Hamblen) On Many Seas 42: He was a genuine old ‘shellback,’ who I believe would have growled if he had been invited by a fairy to wish for whatever he wanted.
1898		A.J. Boyd Shellback 325: He knew his work, and was a thoroughgoing old shellback, although only about thirty years of age.
1902		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 23 Feb. 1/1: One of the bungling shellbacks, ordered not to follow, tracked up the crimson dyed damsel by her ruddy trail.
1904		R. McCardell Show Girl and Her Friends 48: You know how it is when you are out with a shellbark [sic]. You hope [...] he’ll loosen up and buy you something nice.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 293: Hard on an old shell-back that sweated blood to lay up savings for a safe harbor.
1925		(con. 1899) H.P. Bailey Shanghaied Out of Frisco 23: The weather-beaten old shell-back.
1934		Western Morn. News 23 May 8/3: Hark to the tale of shellback as lay on Plymouth Hoe.
1945		R.S. Close Love me Sailor 68: It would have been funny to see that old shellback.
1957		G. Metalious Peyton Place (1959) 325: By Jesus! he thought, I’ll have to watch it. I’m beginning to sound like a true shellback.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 69: These independent Cornish shell backs need careful wooing.
1967		S. Hugill Sailortown 4: Did not the shellback often feel that he would like to become ‘the mate of a fish ’n’ chip cart, with brass knobs and hand-rails’?
1975		J. Ryan Remembering How We Stood 108: It was a description that an old shellback had once given me.
1990		A. Dangor Z Town Trilogy 162: God but you are a shell bek.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 21: It was the Reformers versus the Shellbacks. the arena was the union movement.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 122: ‘All trusty Shellbacks, please present your certificates!’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1883		Sacramento Daily Union (CA) 7 Feb. 2/6: There would be goodly numbers of old shellback Democrats there.
1902		W.S. Walker Zealandia’s Guerdon 127: He was a regular ‘shell-back’ skipper.
2000		S. Maloney Big Ask 165: My task was to muster the strays. Disaffected individuals, the shell-back left, up-for-grabs ethnics.

1. (also nutshell racket) a swindling game in which a small object is concealed under a walnut shell or the like; the manipulator then moves the shells round at speed; bets are made on the shell under which the object is found.

1887		Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) 24 Dec. 12/2: Toohey in the capacity of ‘capper’, gave Meiley his first lesson in the ‘shell game’.
1888		Wichita Eagle (KS) 5 Aug. 5/4: The case against Ed. D. Dorsey [...] charged with gambling, in working the nutshell racket, was dismissed.
1896		Parsons Wkly Eclipse (KS) 20 May 3/1: It all came about from their folks reading about so many people being ruined by the shell game .
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 71: One is a variation of the old shell-game.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Ethics of Pig’ in Gentle Grafter (1915) 228: That night I went down to the circus tents and opened up a small shell game.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 123: The shell game is a typical bunko trick.
c.1930		(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 242: There was faro (bucking the tiger), blackjack (twenty-one), old sledge (seven up), the shell game, three card monte, chuck-a-luck, escarte and brag.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
1947		T. Thursday ‘Billy the Kidder’ in Blue Ribbon Western Nov. 🌐 This fairly honest larceny is known as the shell game.
1949		F. Brown Dead Ringer 21: Your pennypitch games that slide along the borderline of gambling would be shell games and three-card montes.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 70: I’m the patron of all them that do be practising the shell game.
1972		(con. 1950s) D. Goines Whoreson 29: Artifice became my bible, as I learnt how to play stuff, the shell game, pigeon drop and three card molly.
1983		C. Heath A-Team 2 (1984) 164: We could work a shell game on those geeks.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 77: That faith like a shell game had mocked Joe all his life.
2012		W. Keyser ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Shell Game (shell-and-pea game, three-shell game) [...] Three hollow half-walnut-shells are mixed around rapidly on the tabletop, and the bettor (victim) attempts to keep track of and guess which one hides a little dried pea.

2. a generic for any form of (confidence) trick.

1972		R. Kahn Boys of Summer 307: ‘Well, now, pitchin’, you know, is a shell game. You move the ball. You make the hitter guess. [...] The odds are he’ll guess wrong’.
1996		(con. 1949) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 193: I think Gearhart had a very good idea when talked about implementing that old shell game with the second group of men.
2013		P. Abbott ‘Allure Furs’ in ThugLit Feb. [ebook] ‘That’d put an end to your little shell game’.

(Aus.) the ear.

1998

R.G. Barrett Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] [T]he horrible language being a bit too much for Kathy’s two sweet shell-likes.

(US) to throw a person, often a woman who refuses to have sex, out of a vehicle and thus force them to walk home an inconvenient and poss. embarrassing distance.

1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 271: Any one who put a Napkin inside of his Collar or wore a striped Bow with Full Dress would be shell-roaded.
1938		D. Runyon ‘It Comes Up Mud’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 531: She is shell-roaded on the Pelham Parkway by some Yale guys when she gets cross with them.

(US Und.) one who operates a shell game

1890		J.P. Quinn Fools of Fortune 348: The simplicity of the apparatus enables the ‘shell’ man to carry his outfit with him in his vest pocket wherever he may go.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 109: He’s better ’n any o’ them shell-workers that used to graft out at the government pier.
1896		Cincinnati Enquirier (OH) 26 May 2/2: Among the goody-good every thimble-rigger, shell spieler and brace dealer is a gambler.
1901		C.R. Wooldridge Hands Up! 66: Confidence men, shell workers, and sand-baggers followed them like wolves after a lone prairie traveler. [Ibid.] 68: The next one to walk into trouble without looking for it was a merry ‘shell man.’.
1904		Ade ‘The Fable of the Misdirected Sympathy’ in True Bills 105: I may not handle as much Coin as some of the Shell-Workers that hang out in Wall Street.
1909		I.L. Nascher Wretches of Povertyville 221: The three card monte men and the shell men have been driven off the street.
1909		W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 57: The head shell-worker had done time for manslaughter.
1913		Madison Jrnl (LA) 30 Aug. 3/1: ‘Charge, gamblin’. All hands plead guilty.’ [...] It was a phoney police court [...] owned and controlled by the shell men.
1915		Wash. Times (DC) 10 Oct. 15/2: You were the finest shell worker [...] that ever cleaned up a county fair.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 176: He munched and listened to the shell-workers talk singsongingly of the elusive little pea.
1922		El Paso Herald (TX) 18 July 13/6: The circus grafters are the shell and wheel men, flat-joint and broad workers, stalls and dips.
1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 28 June 13: The cream of the nation’s Three-Card Monte men [...] the Classiest Pea and Shell Men Outside Alcatraz.
1947		AS XXII:3 162: There are today two fairly well defined types of professional shell-men operating.

(Aus. Und.) one who operates a shell game

1922

Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 2 Dec. 18/1: All sorts and conditions of crooks take part in the great trek — ‘whizz’ men, ‘broad-tossers,’ ‘shell’ wroughters, ‘Jack’ spinners; all are there.