sheeny

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃiːni/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːni

Seems to have originated in 1820s London. Could be a mockery of Yiddish שיין (sheyn, “beautiful, nice”), much used in praising wares.

• sheeney, sheenie

sheeny (plural sheenies)

1. (slang, offensive, ethnic slur) A Jew.

   Synonyms: (not always pejorative) Yid, heeb, Hymie, kike, shylock

   • 1825/6, Charles Molloy Westmacott, The English spy, an original work, characteristic, satirical, and humorous, comprising scenes and sketches in every rank of society... drawn from the life by Bernard Blackmantle‎^[1], London, U.K.:

     May I never get groggy, if I shall ever forget the joke between you and the old Sheenie, when you threatened to throw him overboard for selling you a dumb time-keeper. ‘Blesh ma heart,’ said the Jew, while his under works shook like a cutter’s foresail going about, ‘how could you expect de vatch to go well, ven de ship vas all in confusion?’ an excuse that saved him from sailing ashore in a skuttle-bucket.

   • 1885, Fred Seaver, “Solomon Levi”‎^[2]Boston, MA, U.S.:

     O, solomon Levi! Levi! tra la la la!
     Poor sheeny Levi, Tra la la la la la la la la la
     My name is Solomon Levi
     At my store on Salem street
     That’s where you’ll buy your coats and vests
     And everything else that’s neat (tra la la)
     Second-handed Ulsterettes
     And everything else that’s fine
     For all the boys they trade with me
     At a hundred and forty nine

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

     Shylock chimes with the jewbaiting that followed the hanging and quartering of the queen’s leech Lopez, his jew’s heart being plucked forth while the sheeny was yet alive.

   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     "I've told you before now not to push that long, sheeny beak of yours into my affairs."

   • 1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Don’t Cry, Ma”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 1 (1899–1923: A Nothin’ but a Child), page 6:

     One time in Humboldt Park Leo "Bow" Gisensohn, our leader, didn't like the way a cop down by the lake called him "sheeny."

   • 2005, “Creed, OK”, in Carnivàle, episode 17:

     Max Baer ain't no Jew.
     Sure he is. Everybody knows that. Sheeny to the core.

2. (slang) A cheat or fraudster.

• Eric Partridge, Slang To-day and Yesterday, 3rd ed., New York: Barnes & Noble, 1950.

From sheen +‎ -y.

sheeny (comparative sheenier, superlative sheeniest)

1. Having a sheen; glossy.
2. Bright; radiant; shining.
   • 1830 June, Alfred Tennyson, “Recollections of the Arabian Nights”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, part I, page 22:

     And many a sheeny summer-morn, / Adown the Tigris I was borne, / By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, / High-walled gardens green and old; […]

• Heynes, Heyens, yen she