shoneen
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of shoneen
C19: from Irish Gaelic Seoinín, diminutive of Seon John (taken as typical English name)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It was not pleasant listening to, or seeing, "The Piper," to many groups of Irishmen, for it cut alike at the Parliamentary Nationalists, the Sein Feiner, and the shoneen.
From Irish Plays and Playwrights by Weygandt, Cornelius
All loved him, only the shoneen, Whom the devils have by the hair, From the wives, and the cats, and the children, 227To the birds in the white of the air.
From Poems by Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
In Ireland there is an expression, a "shoneen" Catholic—that is to say, a Catholic who, though a Catholic, is too friendly with English Conservatism and other influences which the Nationalists dislike.
From Indian speeches (1907-1909) by Morley, John
Good Father John O'Hart In penal days rode out To a shoneen who had free lands And his own snipe and trout.
From Poems by Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
