"strip of wood forming the border of a field," 1570s, a respelling of Middle English shau, shaue "wood, forest, grove, thicket," from Old English sceaga "copse," cognate with North Frisian skage "farthest edge of cultivated land," Old Norse skage "promontory," and perhaps with Old English sceaga "rough matted hair" (see shag (n.)). The Old English word also is the source of the surname Shaw (attested from late 12c.) in all its variations.
1903, "in the style or manner of George Bernard Shaw" (1856-1950), from the Latinized form of his surname. An earlier unlatinized form was Shawian (1894).
1590s, "cloth having a velvet nap on one side," perhaps ultimately from Old English sceacga "rough matted hair or wool," but the word seems to be missing in Middle English. The Old English word is from Proto-Germanic *skagjan (source also of Old Norse skegg, Swedish skägg "beard"), and perhaps related to Old High German scahho "promontory," Old Norse skagi "a cape, headland," with a connecting sense of "jutting out, projecting." Also compare shaw (n.).
The meaning "rough, matted hair, wool, or the like" is from c. 1600. Of a kind of strong tobacco cut in fine shreds, from 1789; of carpets, rugs, etc. made of cloth having a long nap, from 1946.
figurative for a puritan attitude toward the arts at least since Shaw (1916), from the name of Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), Dominican monk famous for his fierce opposition to moral licence and Church corruption.
short for proletarian (n.), 1887 (G.B. Shaw); popularized by George Orwell's 1949 novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four." As an adjective from 1938. Related: Proly (adj.); prolier-than-thou.
1905, from Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), founder of New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (1873) and self-appointed crusader against immorality, + -ery. Coined by George Bernard Shaw after Comstock objected to "Mrs. Warren's Profession." "Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States" [Shaw, New York Times, Sept. 26, 1905]. The Comstock lode, silver vein in Nevada, was discovered 1859 and first worked by U.S. prospector Henry T.P. Comstock (1820-1870), apparently unrelated to Anthony.
1892, from French féministe (1872); also see feminism. As an adjective by 1894. Womanist sometimes was tried as a native alternative. Femalist already had been taken as "courter of woman, a gallant" (1610s). Shaw coined hominist for "one who advocates for men the rights and privileges conventionally accorded to women."
"detective," 1866, U.S. slang, from name of the detective in "The Ticket-of-Leave Man," 1863 play by English dramatist Tom Taylor (1817-1880); it later was used in the comic strip "Hawkshaw the Detective" (1913-1947) by U.S. cartoonist Gus Mager (1878-1956). The surname is attested from late 13c., from a place name in Lancashire, with shaw "undergrowth, woodland, scrub," from Old English sceaga.
"growing old, aging," 1650s, from Latin senescentem (nominative scenescens), present participle of senescere "to grow old," from senex "old" (from PIE root *sen- "old").
Blount's "Glossographia" (1656) also has a verb senesce "to wax old, to grow in age, to begin to decay or wear away," from Latin, and OED has quotes for it from Stevenson, Shaw, and J.D. Salinger.
