different between shonky vs shifty

English

Alternative forms

• shonk (the noun)

Etymology

From 1970s; possibly from dialectal English shonk (“smart”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

shonky (comparative shonkier, superlative shonkiest)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, Britain, informal) Of poor or dubious quality, shoddy, unreliable; deviously dishonest, fraudulent.
   • 1986, Sociological Association of Australia and New Zealand, ANZJS: The Australian & New Zealand Journal of Sociology, Volume 22, page 475,

     The argument gets even shonkier when they claim that the boundary between clerical and administrative work is difficult to define anyway, and that routinisation and fragmentation have affected lower and middle management too (pp. 95–6).

   • 2000, Australian Senate, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), page 13548,

     The committee heard much evidence that this is a farce, yet this government have continued to try to pretend that their forecast, based on the shonkiest of assumptions—their model, with the shonkiest of assumptions—is really what is going to happen.

   • 2002, Markus Zusak, The Messenger, page 158,

     He might be a dole-bludger, a gambler and have the shonkiest tattoo in the world on his arm, but he'll agree to almost anything.

   • 2009, Bettina Arndt, The Sex Diaries, page 242,

     That?s why it is infuriating that there are still so many sharks out there who are determined to rip men off with shonky treatments that simply don?t work.

   • 2010, Stephen Gaunson, The Glenrowan Affair, Ben Goldsmith, Geoff Lealand (editors), Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand, page 98,

     Marred by shonky direction and factual errors, the film did nothing to enhance Kathner?s already poor reputation.

Noun

shonky (plural shonkies)

1. (Australia) A dishonest person.
   • 1993, Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, Australian Industrial Relations Commission, Commonwealth Arbitration Reports, Volume 3, page 577,

     It is clear from Mr Boyd's evidence that the Union is hoping as a result of its application to obtain an award provision which would control the practices of the "crooks and shonkies in the industry".

   • 2003, Australian House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Representatives, Volume 257, page 19422,

     Mr BILLSON—and they are being called shonkies and all sorts of things by the Labor Party […] .

   • 2010, Barry McMillan, Chinaman's Lagoon, page 323,

     I could hear the tenants talking above me and they were laughing about how they had ripped of the public transport system. I made up my mind that as they were obvious shonkies, I wouldn't give any leeway and, if they didn't pay on the spot, I would disconnect supply.

English

Etymology

shift +? -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???fti/

Adjective

shifty (comparative shiftier, superlative shiftiest)

1. Subject to frequent changes in direction.
   • 1929, Henry Handel Richardson, Ultima Thule, New York: Norton, Part 2, Chapter 3, p. 145,^[2]

     Off he raced, shuffling his bare feet through the hot, dry, shifty sand.

   • 2002, Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Last Crossing, New York: Grove, Chapter 17, p. 190,^[3]

     The Kelsos crowding their horses up against the wagon, bumping it, making things shake inside: everything going shifty, unsteady.

2. (of a person's eyes) Moving from one object to another, not looking directly and steadily at the person with whom one is speaking.
   • 1886, George Manville Fenn, This Man’s Wife, Chapter 3, in Littel’s Living Age, Volume 168, No. 2178, 20 March, 1886, p. 761,^[4]

     […] his quick, shifty eyes turned from the manager to the lethal weapons over the chimney, then to the safe, then to the bank, and Mr. Thickens’s back.

   • 1914, G. K. Chesterton, “The Head of Cæsar” in The Wisdom of Father Brown, London: Cassell, 1928, p. 149,^[5]

     His tinted glasses were not really opaque, but of a blue kind common enough, nor were the eyes behind them shifty, but regarded me steadily.

   • 1993, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy, Boston: Little, Brown, Chapter 1.4, p. 10,^[6]

     He was thin, unsure of himself, sweet-natured and shifty-eyed; and he was Lata’s favourite.

3. Having the appearance of being dishonest, criminal or unreliable.

   He was a shifty character in a seedy bar, and I checked my wallet was still there after talking to him.

   • 1999, J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace, New York: Viking, Chapter 23, p. 208,^[7]

     ‘I don’t trust him,’ he goes on. ‘He is shifty. He is like a jackal sniffing around, looking for mischief. […] ’

4. Resourceful; full of, or ready with, shifts or expedients.
   • 1857, Charles Kingsley, Two Years Ago, Cambridge: Macmillan, Volume 1, Chapter 1, p. 34,^[8]

     Shifty and thrifty as old Greek or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps nothing he could not endure.

Derived terms

• shiftily
• shiftiness
• shifty-eyed

Translations

References