Dictionary

shend en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ʃɛnd/

Etymology

From Middle English schenden, from Old English sċendan (“to put to shame, blame, disgrace”), from Proto-West Germanic *skandijan (“to scold, berate”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kem- (“to cover”). Cognate with Dutch schenden (“to infringe, profane, defile”), German schänden (“defile”). Related to Old English sċand (“infamy, shame, scandal”). More at shand, shame.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) To disgrace or put to shame.
   • Her fawning love with foule disdainefull spight He would not shend 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
   • Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your greatness back? c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
2. (archaic) To blame.
3. (archaic) To destroy; to spoil.
   • Go see their fleet and arms, their manner view / of moulded metal, ready all to shend[.] 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume II, page 279:
4. (archaic) To overpower; to surpass.
   • Not since I backed a horse have I been perssed so hard; peril of life, jeopardy of land and livelihood, and to sum up, all these losels in the wood to hunt me down. But I be not yet shent. Some of my lads will pick me their way home. 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Chapter 7, The Hooded Face”, in The Black Arrow:
   • Since sware the Parcæ unto me, their friend, / they shall adore my name, my favour prize; / and, as their feats of armèd prowess shend / all feats of rival Rome, I lief devise / some mode of aidance in what things I may, / far as our force o'er man extendeth sway. 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume II, page 339:

Forms

Deriveds

toshend · shendship