shady, a.
(ˈʃeɪdɪ)
Also 7–8 shaddy.
[f. shade n. + -y.]
1. Affording shade.
| 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Jan. 31 You naked trees, whose shady leaues are lost. 1611 Bible Job xl. 22 The shady trees couer him with their shaddow. 1697 Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 74 The winged Nation..o'er the Plains and shady Forrest flies. 1825 Wordsw. To Skylark 7 Leave to the nightingale her shady wood. 1879 ‘Edna Lyall’ Won by Waiting xxvi, There was a shady hat to be chosen. |
2. Shaded, protected by shade.
| 1589 Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 36 The shadie valleies [shall be] thy euenings arbour. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. iii. 4 Her angels face..made a sunshine in the shady place. 1661 Boyle Certain Physiol. Ess. (1669) 191 Those little moats that from a shady place we see swimming up and down in the Sun-beams. 1717 Lady M. W. Montagu Let. to Pope 17 June, I am in the middle of a wood..divided into many shady walks. a 1821 Keats Hyperion i. 1 Deep in the shady sadness of a vale. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 29 There are shady places under the trees, at which..we may often rest and talk. |
b. fig. phr. on the shady side of: older than (a specified age).
| 1807–8 W. Irving Salmag. (1824) 87 The younger being somewhat on the shady side of thirty. 1872 Calverley Fly Leaves (1884) 74 Thou art on the shady Side of sixty too. |
c. Inhabiting or loving the shade; choosing retirement and security. nonce-use.
| a 1586 Sidney Apol. Poetry (Arb.) 51 We were full of courage, giuen to martiall exercises;..and not lulled a sleepe in shady idlenes with Poets pastimes. |
† 3. Opaque; also, not luminous, dark. Obs.
| 1605 Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. xxiii. §48. 118 This Globe which seemeth to vs a dark and shady body is in the view of God as Christall. 1709–29 V. Mandey Syst. Math., Astron. 343 And that 'tis not Pellucid or Shining, but is the same shady Body, is evident from this [etc.]. |
b. said of night. poet.
| 1746 Francis tr. Horace, Epist. ii. ii. 281 From dawning Day till shady Night [L. ad umbram lucis ab ortu]. 1896 A. E. Housman Shropshire Lad xix, Eyes the shady night has shut. |
† c. Of qualities: Of the nature of shade or defect. Obs.
| 1719 Oldisworth E. Smith's Wks. Charac. Author A 8, If the World had half his good Nature, all the shady Parts would be entirely struck out of his Character. |
† 4. Shadowy, indefinite in outline, faintly perceptible. Obs.
| 1626 Bacon Sylva §249 You shall see..diuers such Super-Reflexions, till the species speciei at last die. For it is euery Returne weaker, and more shady. 1710 Norris Chr. Prud. iv. 332 The light of Conscience..may be..made shine very dim, so as to give but a very faint and shady direction. |
5. colloq. a. Of questionable merit or prospects of success; uncertain, unreliable. [? Orig. university slang.]
| 1848 Clough Bothie i. 24 The Tutor..Shady in Latin, said Lindsay, but topping in plays and Aldrich. 1858 Bp. Fraser in Hughes Life (1887) 97 We have twenty-one candidates for the Ireland—a shady lot. 1858 R. S. Surtees Ask Mamma xxv. 95 What looks very well one way may look very shady the other. ? c 1880 Jowett in Tollemache Mem. (1895) 21 [Commenting on the remark that England had one living poet of the first order, but hardly another even of the second class.] I think that Browning deserves a shady first. 1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 16 Oct. 5/2 The chances of the Underground Railway against the omnibuses will be very shady. |
b. Not bearing investigation, of a nature or character unable to bear the light; disreputable.
| 1862 Sat. Rev. 8 Feb. 156 Balls and bazaars continue to be the refuge of institutions, whether charitable or religious, whose balance-sheets are ‘shady’. 1873 Punch 25 Oct. 167/2 Have always heard that ‘shady people’ went to Boulogne. 1882 W. Ballantine Exper. iv. 42, I was entrusted with a brief by a rather shady attorney. 1894 Sir E. Sullivan Woman 52 A Roman lady of extraordinary beauty and somewhat shady character. |
______________________________
▸ shadily adv. with or by shade; (now usually) in a questionable or disreputable manner.
| 1840 W. Whewell tr. Goethe Herman & Dorothea 69 By the reverend gloom of tall limes *shadily shelter'd, In that place already many a century rooted. 1936 M. Mitchell Gone with Wind xliii. 773 We made the most of our opportunity, some honestly, some shadily. 1983 National Jrnl. 19 Mar. 605/2 The Italian central bank refused to make good on the obligations of Banco Ambrosiano..when its shadily run Luxembourg subsidiary folded. 1997 Guardian (Nexis) 27 Mar. t12 The original motley crew, drawn from all over South America..are shadily lured to New York by the promise of high wages. |