shoful
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From German Schofel (“worthless stuff, rubbish”), substantive use of schofel (“base, mean, worthless”), representing the German-Jewish pronunciation of Hebrew שפל (shāphēl, “low”).[1]
Noun[edit]
shoful (countable and uncountable, plural shofuls)
- (obsolete, UK, slang, countable) A Hansom cab.
- (obsolete, UK, slang, uncountable) Counterfeit money.
- 1863, Blanchard Jerrold, Signals of Distress in Refuges and Homes of Charity (etc.), page 2:
- To discover […] how the honest poor are compelled to hob-and-nob with the “shoful pitcher” and the “gun,” it is necessary to visit the vast nursery-grounds of crime.
Alternative forms[edit]
- (counterfeit money): schofel
References[edit]
- John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
- ^ James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Shoful”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes VIII, Part 2 (S–Sh), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 726, column 2.