Green’s Dictionary of Slang

an emaciated, worthless and generally good-for-nothing person; also attrib.

1593		G. Harvey Pierce’s Supererogation 74: His witt paunched [...] his conceit as lank, as a shotten herring.
c.1597		Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 1 II iv: If manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring.
1607		T. Walkington Optic Glasse of Humors 14: This man is as wise as a woodcock, his wits in a consumption, his conceit is as lancke as a shotten Herrin.
1613		Dekker A Strange Horse-Race in Grosart Works (1885) 335: The third that came sneaking in was a leane ill-faced shotten-herring-bellied-rascall.
1630		J. Taylor ‘A Brood of Cormorants’ in Works (1869) III 3: Though they like shotten herrings are to see, / Yet such tall Souldiers of their teeth they be.
1638		R. Brome Antipodes IV ii: Gip gaffer Shotten, fagh.
1639		Chapman & Shirley Ball I i: The shotten herring is hard by.
a.1642		B.J. Guy of Warwick Act II: I have made her look pretty and plump, and she has made me look like a shotten Herring.
1680		School of Venus (2004) 54: He must be of [...] a strong able body, not of a Barbary shape like a Shotten herring.
1713		W. King York Spy 14: Mr. Whipster, a perfect Skeleton, a meer Shotten-Herring.
1727		J. Gay Beggar’s Opera III iii: Why, Boy, thou lookest as if thou wert half starv’d; like a shotten Herring.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 102: My Legs look’d like Trap-sticks, My Body like a Shotten-Herring.
1768		Kentish Gaz. 16 Nov. 3/3: The very state is rotten — [...] Looks like a herring shotten.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1793		Sporting Mag. May II 116/1: Does my mother suppose [...] that I can appear in the streets like a shotten herring.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1830		‘Catalogue of Odd Fish’ Fleet-Street Collection 8: Shotten herring’s a man when he lacks work.
1838		Worcs Chron. 24 May 2/3: His brother William, a spare, shotten-herring figure, with jaws like nutcrackers.
1841		Era (London) 16 May 10/3: .
1860		Carlisle Jrnl 25 May 6/6: If I did not trot one whole half mile without a single throw, I am a ‘shotten herring’ (Water Ouzel).
1867		W.H. Smyth Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 622: Shotten-Herring. [...] a term of contempt for a lean, lazy fellow.
1869		Worcester Jrnl 24 Apr. 8/5: You are a shotten herring an’ you say nay.
1904		Berkshire News 4 Oct. 7/1: If he does not some day emulate his brother’s fame, ‘I am a shotten herring,’ as Falstaff said.