SHAMMY n.
A soft, pliant leather, prepared originally from the skin of the chamois, but now made also from the skin of the sheep, goat, kid, deer, and calf. See Shamoying. [Written also chamois, shamoy, and shamois.]
SHIRE n.
A portion of Great Britain originally under the supervision of an earl; a territorial division, usually identical with a county, but sometimes limited to a smaller district; as, Wiltshire, Yorkshire, Richmondshire, Hallamshire. An indefinite number of these hundreds make up a county or shire. Blackstone.…
SHORT n.
are generally wide, the long narrow, besides being generally diphthongic as well. Hence, originally short vowels can be lengthened and yet kept quite distinct from the original longs. H. Sweet. In short, in few words; in brief; briefly. -- The long and the short, the whole; a brief summing up. -- The shorts (Stock E…
SHREW n.
Originally, a brawling, turbulent, vexatious person of either sex, but now restricted in use to females; a brawler; a scold. A man . . . grudgeth that shrews [i. e., bad men] have prosperity, or else that good men have adversity. Chaucer. A man had got a shrew to his wife, and there could be no quiet in the house for h…
SLEEVE n.
ng a grave or serious demeanor toward the person or persons laughed at; that is, perhaps, originally, by hiding the face in the wide sleeves of former times. -- To pin, or hang, on the sleeve of, to be, or make, dependent upon.
SODA n.
rdinary Leblanc process of soda manufacture; -- called also alkali waste. -- Soda water, originally, a beverage consisting of a weak solution of sodium bicarbonate, with some acid to cause effervescence; now, in common usage, a beverage consisting of water highly charged with carbon dioxide (carbonic acid). Fruit siru…