subs. phr. (common).—1. An improvised bed. Also as verb. = (1) to sleep on a temporary substitute for a bed.
d. 1849. EDGEWORTH, The Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock, i. 3. I would not choose to put more on the floor than two beds, and one SHAKE-DOWN.
1821. P. EGAN, Real Life in London, II. 164. Sure enough a SHAKE-DOWN is a two-penny layer of straw, and saving the tatters on my back, not a covering at all at all.
1838. MRS. S. C. HALL, Sketches of Irish Character, 137. A ‘SHAKE-DOWN’ had been ordered even in Mr. Barry’s own study.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I. 272. In the better lodging-houses the SHAKE-DOWNS are small palliasses or mattresses; in the worst, they are bundles of rags of any kind; but loose straw is used only in the country for SHAKE-DOWNS.
1858. DICKENS, Great Expectations, xli. He … advised me to look out at once for “a fashionable crib” in which he could have a “SHAKE-DOWN,” near Hyde Park.
1860. W. H. RUSSELL, My Diary in India, I. 40. Five or six of us ‘SHOOK DOWN’ for the night, and resigned ourselves to the musquitoes and to slumber.
1869. E. WOOD, Roland Yorke, xxxi. “Where are you going to sleep?” … “I dare say they can give me a SHAKE-DOWN at the mother’s. The hearth-rug will do.”
1872. Sunday Times, 18 Aug., ‘Fun and Riddle Club.’ It was resolved: The members of this club do retire to their virtuous SHAKEDOWNS to pass the rest of the night in the arms of Morpheus.
1883. GREENWOOD, Seaside Insanity, in Odd People in Odd Places, 51. Two or three of missus’s younger children, who have a ‘SHAKEDOWN’ on the pot-board beneath her, while father and mother share a mattress in the wash-house.
1886. Daily Telegraph, 20 March. At night he had a SHAKE-DOWN in an adjacent outhouse.
1893. P. H. EMERSON, Signor Lippo, xi. The butler made a collection for us and gave us a SHAKE DOWN in the stables on some nice clean hay.
1897. B. MITFORD, A Romance of the Cape Frontier, I. v. He had ‘SHAKEN DOWN’ in Hicks’ room, and the two had talked and smoked themselves to sleep.
1901. Troddles, 122. Why not run on and get a SHAKEDOWN there. They’ll do us decently and cheap if they are not already full.
2. (American thieves’).—A brothel kept by a PANEL-THIEF (q.v.).
3. (American).—A rough dance; a BREAK-DOWN (q.v.).
