Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a fuss, a disturbance; noise, uproar, excitement.

1886		Sporting Times 10 Apr. 3/3: Ses I ‘’ere’s a lovely shlemozzle— ’ / And all through a quartern of rum.
1889		Music Hall & Theatre Rev 2 Mar. 38/2: When the manager noticed this there was a ‘schemozzle’.
1889		Era (London) 2 Feb. 17/2: ‘Shemozzle’ will not be found in Walker, Webster, Johnson or Ogilvie, but it is a term ‘well understood of the people’.
1890		‘Morris the Mohel’ ‘Houndsditch Day By Day’ in Sporting Times 11 Jan. 3: The ’ole affair vhas vun run o’ shlemozzles from shtart to finish.
1890		Sporting Times 6 Nov. 2/4: His general appearance denotres [...] he is a cross between a flying Ketawkus and a Shemozzle.
1891		‘After the Ball’ 🎵 (Then) there would have been no schemozzle / After the ball.
1896		(ref. to 1850) Mirror of Life 15/1: [W]hen Hazeltine won the Jews who backed him called him Mozzletine; when he lost they called him Shemozzletine.
1899		Referee 1 Dec. in Ware (1909) 216/2: I had espied W. A. P., sitting not far off, and partly with a desire to prevent bloodshed, partly in the hope of promoting a schlemozzle, I notified Jones accordingly.
1900		From the Front 183: We might look upon this little chimozzle as a kind of misunderstanding [F&H].
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 10 Oct. 1/2: Oh, what a shemozzle! a four-line advertisement had crept in unnoticed.
1900		Sporting Times 10 Feb. 1/3: He has entered into that realm of higher intelligence beyond the mists, where the mighty mysteries of this poor little world are as an open book. [...] Perhaps he will even get a clear understanding of the Spion Kop shemozzle!
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 102: ‘Billo!’ exclaimed the boy hoarsely, ‘or there’ll be a rare ole chermozzle.’.
1916		T. Burke Limehouse Nights 287: Old Ding-Dong, ’earing the schlemozzle, come running up.
1920		Marvel 14 Aug. 6: When the shemozzle’s over give ’em to the winner!
1923		M. Garahan Stiffs 131: I would serve the devil and have a shamozzle that would shake the eternal foundations of Truth and Morality.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 53: Chemozzle: A row. A little unpleasantness. [Ibid.] 255: Shemozzle: A row: a quarrel. A misfortune. Also meaning an affair of any sort.
1928		Derby Dly Teleg. 15 Sept. 4/3: ‘What shemozzle isn’t it?’ he said dazedly.
1930		S. Sassoon Memoirs Infantry Officer 156: When I showed the battle-plan to the Sergeant-Major, all he said was ‘We’ll have a rough house from Ale Alley.’ But no one had any idea it was going to be such a schimozzle as it was!
1936		D. Footman Pig and Pepper (1990) 2–3: Slaughter came in with news of a rare old shimozzle that was going on in the town.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 18: It is no good makin’ any shemozzle about Sagers bein’ bumped off.
1937		R. Westerby Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 151: Proper ol’ schemozzle at the party after you went.
c.1939		B. Bennett ‘Sobstuff Sister’ in Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 18: Each week she was in a schemozzle, / Either biting the ears off Clark Gable, / Or biting the boko off Schnozzle.
1940		S. Lister Mistral Hotel (1951) 91: It’s France’s big day. Storming of the Bastille and all that. There’ll be a tremendous schemozzle in the village that night.
1945		D. Bolster Roll On My Twelve 20: On’y she stayed ’Ome, like, instead, along of all the shemozzle with Musso.
1946		Sun (Sydney) 29 Sept. 15/1: Old Brissie the star-gazing gov bumped one of the schemozzles which nearly drove Mac off his scone .
1952		K. Williams Diaries 25 Feb. 71: Great schemozzle over Søren Welling. M& D both very obtuse over the entire business.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 8: That’s why the whole damn thing’s going haywire; what started with Calwell as a master-plan ends up in places like this as a schmozzle.
1955		E. Waugh Officers and Gentlemen 276: There was something of a schemozzle last night but we weren’t in that.
1957		A. Buckeridge Thanks to Jennings (1988) 168: Who’s making that ghastly shemozzle?
1960		N. Fitzgerald Candles Are All Out 169: One of them [...] decides to take advantage of the general schemozzle by killing Kate.
1962		B. McGhee Cut and Run (1963) 69: Ah heard a wee bit o’ a schemozzle while yese were in the room.
1979		(con. 1930s) J. Wolveridge He Don’t Know ‘A’ from a Bull’s Foot 7: The most commonly used expressions for kicking up a row were ‘causing a shemozzle’ and ‘raising cain’.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 109: Mr Foster decides to mix it, and there is a shemozzle.
1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 123: If you ask me, this is turning into one big shemozzle all around.
1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 12: Animal House a film (from the US) dealing with college fraternity houses and campus shemozzles and shenanigans.
1996		K. Lette Mad Cows 94: Thank you, for landing me in this crapulous shemozzle.
2001		Sydney Morn. Herald 28 July 67/7: Don Talbot appealed against the decision and fumed: ‘It’s a shemozzle’.
2019		G. Disher Peace 216: ‘What a shemozzle’.

2. a state of difficulty.

1889		Music Hall & Theatre Rev 16 Feb. 13/2: Commend us to her song, ‘I’ve Had a Schemozzle With My Young Man’.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 23: It was through no recklessness or extravagance that he was in this shlemozzle.
1901		A. Binstead More Gal’s Gossip 154: All the men in their clubs are laughing immoderately over the ‘ghastly shlemozzle,’ as Charlie calls it, at Clackmannan Castle the other day.
2001		Sydney Morn. Herald 13 July 18/1: What other excuse can there be for the latest schemozzle with self-employed contractors?

3. bad luck.

1892

J.R. Couper Mixed Humanity 265: They believed dealings with her after the death of Morris would bring them ‘shlemozel’.