Shamus (name)

Shamus (name)

Shamus ("shaw" mus, -"shay") [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shamus] (archaic) was an American slang term for a police officer or private detective, probably from the Yiddish "shamess", meaning "caretaker"; it may also have been influenced by the Irish name "Seamus". It was occasionally used in the novels of Raymond Chandler as a somewhat derogatory name for the detective Philip Marlowe. It is also regularly used by James Hadley Chase in several novels, especially in a A Coffin From Hong Kong, where the protagonist is repeatedly addressed by this term by a hostile police-chief.

Shamus is also the name of a character in John le Carre's novel The Naive and Sentimental Lover.

The phrase was also used in the film The Big Sleep, and in The Big Lebowski (in part a tribute to "The Big Sleep") in succession to several other synonyms for detective.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Shamus — may refer to: * Shamus (name), a slang term for a private detective * Shamus (computer game), a 1980s computer game * Shamus (film) , a 1973 film starring Burt ReynoldsSee also: *Seamus …   Wikipedia

  • Shamus (computer game) — [ frame|right|The Commodore 64 version of Shamus .] Shamus is a computer game written by William Mataga and published by Synapse Software. Originally developed for the Atari 8 bit computer system in 1982, it later appeared as a title for the… …   Wikipedia

  • shamus — police officer, detective, 1920, apparently first in The Shamus, a detective story published that year by Harry J. Loose (1880 1943), a Chicago police detective and crime writer; the book was marketed as a true tale of thiefdom and an expose of… …   Etymology dictionary

  • Shamus Culhane — Infobox actor bgcolour = silver name = Shamus Culhane imagesize = caption = birthdate = birth date|1908|11|12|mf=y location = Ware, Massachusetts USA height = deathdate = death date and age|1996|2|2|1908|11|12 deathplace = New York City, New York …   Wikipedia

  • shamus —    An American slang term for a policeman or private detective. ‘Shamus’ is a phonetic spelling of Seamus, the Irish form of James, a name which would have been common amongst the predominantly Irish police force in the USA in former times.… …   A dictionary of epithets and terms of address

  • shamus — /shah meuhs, shay /, n., pl. shamuses. Slang. 1. a detective. 2. a police officer. [1925 30; of obscure orig., though popularly derived from either Yiddish shames SHAMMES or the Ir male given name Séamas] * * * …   Universalium

  • shamus —    (SHAY mus) [Possibly Irish, from the given name Seamus, or from Yiddish shammes] In slang, a policeman or a detective …   Dictionary of foreign words and phrases

  • James (name) — Infobox Given Name Revised name = James imagesize= caption= pronunciation=IPA|/dʒeɪmz/ or IPA|/dʒeɪms/ gender = Male meaning = “he supplanted” region = origin = Hebrew related names = Iacomus, Jacob, Jaime, Jamie, Séamas footnotes = James was the …   Wikipedia

  • Tracey McBean — infobox television show name = Tracey McBean caption = Tracey McBean standing format = Animated series runtime = approx 0:30 (0.15 per segment) creator = Mark Small Arthur Filloy starring = Alice Ley Lisa Bailey Anthony Hayes country = Australia… …   Wikipedia

  • O'Neil De Noux — O’Neil De Noux (born November 29, 1950 in New Orleans, LA) is a prolific US novelist and short story writer. Although most of De Noux’s fiction falls under the mystery genre, critics describe his work as character driven crime fiction. He has… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”