shove-groat Obs. exc. Hist.
[f. stem of shove v.1 + groat n.]
= shovel-board. (Cf. slidegroat, slip-groat.)
| 1488 in W. Kelly Notices illustr. Drama (1865) 181 [All persons were forbidden to play at]..checker-in-the-mire, or shove grote. 1541–2 Act 33 Hen. VIII, c. 9 §1 Slyde⁓thrifte otherwise called shovegrote. c 1640 J. Smyth Lives Berkeleys (1883–5) II. 363 The hours..spent..at bowles tenis Cockpit Shufgrote cards and dice. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iv. i. §19. 225. 1855 Kingsley Westw. Ho! ii, Playing at shove-groat with Spanish doubloons. |
b. attrib., as shove-groat table; shove-groat shilling, a shilling used in the game.
| 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, ii. iv. 206 Quoit him downe (Bardolph) like a shoue-groat shilling. 1598 B. Jonson Ev. Man in Hum. iii. ii. [v], [They] made it runne as smooth of the toung, as a shoue-groat shilling. 1628 Wither Brit. Rememb. 210 A Shove-groat table. |
Hence ˈshovegroating, playing at shove-groat.
| 1601 Hakewill Van. Eye xxix. (1615) 140 Bouling, shooting, coiting, shoufgrating, and the like. |