shab

plural shabs

1. UKcountabledialectalobsoleteuncountableScabies.
2. UKcountabledialectalobsoleteuncountableA scab.

present singular third person shabs · participle present shabbing · participle past shabbed · past shabbed

1. obsoleteTo scratch; to rub.

   I have shabbed him off purely

   1698, George Farquhar, Love and a Bottle

2. UKdialectalobsoleteTo move (something, away or out of the way), to drive off.

   I have shabb'd him off purely.

   1698 Farquhar, Love & Bottle, iv. iii

   4 more examples

   Certain Nipnets intended to have sheltred themselves under Vncas; but he perceiving it would be distastful to the English, soon shab'd them off.

   1677, W. Howard, Narrative, postscript, T 3 b

   They shab'd […] Thomas aff to hell.

   ante 1824, in Mactaggart, Gallovid. Encycl., 347

   […] but when that [money] was gone, and he had not as much ground, that he could call his own, as would sod a lark, they soon shabbed him off.

   1828, Thomas Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, page 212

   I hold the people in too much esteem, to shab them off with any thing of a secondary quality, whilst Providence has blessed me with the means of providing them the best.

   1840, John Pendleton Kennedy, Quodlibet: Containing Some Annals Thereof ..., page 61

3. UKslangobsolete outside historical fictionTo skulk or sneak away.

   […] and so the fat Parson shabb'd off,[…]

   1731, The Windsor Medley: Being a Choice Collection of Several Curious and Valuable Pieces in Prose and Verse: that Were Handed about in Print and Manuscript, During the Stay of the Court at Windsor-Castle Last Summer. ..., page 24

   1 more example

   We bided a moment as the push we were part of moved forward and took the opportunity to slip deftly back through it, thus shabbing off from our prey.

   2017 February 23, Jake Arnott, The Fatal Tree, Sceptre, →ISBN