Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A drink made of beer or ale mixed with ginger beer, ginger ale, or lemonade.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A mixture of bitter ale or beer with ginger-beer. The original English recipe is a pint of bitter beer with a small bottle of old-fashioned ginger-beer; but porter or stout or lager-beer is sometimes substituted for the bitter beer, and ginger-ale for the ginger-beer.
Wiktionary
- n. UK A mixture of strong beer and ginger beer.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. engraving A mixture of strong beer and ginger beer.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a drink made of beer and lemonade
Etymologies
- shandy + ...? (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And when he came, heated, tired, but bubbling over with eagerness to tell her of the fun they had been having with Brax, she met him with a cool tankard of "shandygaff," which he had learned to like in England among the horse-artillery fellows, and declared the very prince of drinks after active exercise in hot weather.”
“There would always be weighty enquiries as to what they could have, and it would work out always at cold beef and pickles, or fried ham and eggs and shandygaff, two pints of beer and two bottles of ginger beer foaming in a huge round-bellied jug.”
“Mr. Bagshaw, who appeared to pride himself at least as much on his characteristics, replied by sulkily looking at his watch; and a moment later by sulkily taking a cup, rather as if he were a schoolboy bidden to take lemonade when mannishly desirous of shandygaff, and sulkily remarking, "I must go.”
“Concurrent with the tripes, one inducted the other into the true mystery of blending shandygaff, explaining the first doctrine of that worthy draught, which is that the beer must be poured into the beaker before the ginger ale, for so arises a fatter and lustier bubblement of foam.”
“It is believed that a continual bibbing of shandygaff saps the will, the nerves, the resolution, and the finer faculties, but there are those who will abide no other tipple.”
“Just at that juncture I happened to hear that a certain publisher needed an editorial man, and when Bob and I were at Browne's discussing the fate of "Walking-Stick Papers" over a jug of shandygaff, I told him this news.”
“But he seems to have taken up with some queer people here, people who drop in at any time of the evening and smoke and drink and solemnly discuss how a shandygaff should be mixed and tell stories I wouldn't care to have the children hear.”
“Back again he comes to cold supper and long draughts of shandygaff in hall; then a pipe or two and a chat, and then (sometimes) a spell of reading before bed and sleep.”
“Understand," said that gentleman, with whom the affair of the half-sovereign still rankled, "_your_ drink is shandygaff.”
“In taverns, of course, the churchwarden -- beloved of Carlyle and Tennyson -- was usually smoked to the accompaniment of shandygaff.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shandygaff’.
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Folksy Compounds
Those great mashup words that sound like somebody's grampa made them up.
flabbergasted, flibbertigibbet, fussbudget, snickerpuss, chickabiddy, clapperclaw, screaming meemies, snicker-snack, hornswoggle, humdinger, crinkum-crankum, callithump and 11 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. II
cicurate, circumforaneous, codger, comiconomenclaturist, constable, contradistinction, contraindicated, counterpane, coxcomb, decalcomania, decanal, decoction and 307 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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O! Timballo
for the same
tea-poy, pooking fork, ait, eyot, quodlibet, milk leg, tussie-mussie, calash, gueules, caitiff, bindery, demi-rep and 226 more...
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Sound or sequence
dulcimer, borborygmi, ecchymosis, scrivener, fustilugs, zarf, bawdyhouse, googleable, archfiend, gymkhana, cuckoopint, pilpul and 104 more...
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Wordnik Notebooks
All the words from the cover of the Wordnik notebook.
A few words appear twice: frass, cruet, luna, thalweg, and possibly some more.
Careful: Contains spoilers!spilth, frass, fomite, rux, worricow, alizarin, mundungus, parthenocarpy, jib, whinyard, weisure, nimiety and 217 more...
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Verbalitis
syncretic
anecdotal, phthisis, serendipitous, slapper, syncretic, sesquipedalian, hysteresis, polt, noyade, crocket, irenic, masquerade and 278 more...
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Fun
harangue, quixotic, persnickety, lachrymose, kerfuffle, zephyr, chthonic, vixen, fiend, scoundrel, cricket, belfry and 193 more...
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Gigglesomes
Words that make me giggle.
sackbut, beshrew, hubbub, futz, tchotchke, oolong, newt, dingo, squishy, fjord, squirt, dangler and 107 more...
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Words that kick serious ass
juggernaut, haymaker, gung-ho, frag, smite, blunderbuss, gargantuan, ragnarok, ripsnorter, herculean, silverback, firebrand and 127 more...
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'Wasted' Words
Alcohol-related words that tickle the ear & the fancy
absinthe, ambrosial, Bordeaux, burgundy, bibulous, wineskin, champagne, claret, corkscrew, drip dickey, frizzante, flagon and 74 more...
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words to learn
ecclesiarch, decennium, decennary, galactosemia, tautogeneity, quadrature, vellum, wainwright, addax, quadrumane, omnisentient, glyphography and 75 more...
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It's Beer O'Clock
Types of beer.
rumfustian, stoorey, kvass, calibogus, clamber-clown, courmi, cuckoo-ale, dole-beer, egg-flip, gale-beer, grout-ale, home-brew and 85 more...
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Names
Words I can use as character names...
wharfinger, tatty, wildcatter, pother, shandygaff, snash, thropple
Tweets
Looking for tweets for shandygaff.

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