Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A playful or mischievous act; a prank.
  • noun An underhanded act or deceitful remark.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Nonsense; humbug; deceit: as, now, no shenanigan about this.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Trickery, games; skulduggery. To "call", "claim" or "declare" shenanigans is to rhetorically label something as officially deceitful, improper, or otherwise incorrect.
  • noun A deceitful confidence trick, or mischief causing discomfort or annoyance.
  • noun Mischievous play, especially by children.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun reckless or malicious behavior that causes discomfort or annoyance in others
  • noun the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Of uncertain origin. These possibilities have been suggested:

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word shenanigan.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Use to express outrage, a la Chavo Guerrero Sr., "this is a shenanigan!"

    December 6, 2006

  • This word has been replaced with bernie

    June 30, 2009

  • A curiosity: I've never seen one by itself. Usually they travel in packs.

    December 16, 2009