shend

English[edit]

From Middle English shenden, from Old English sċendan (“to put to shame, blame, disgrace”), from Proto-West Germanic *skandijan (“to scold, berate”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kem- (“to cover”). Cognate with Dutch schenden (“to infringe, profane, defile”), German schänden (“defile”). Related to Old English sċand (“infamy, shame, scandal”). More at shand, shame.

shend (third-person singular simple present shends, present participle shending, simple past and past participle shent)

(obsolete) To disgrace or put to shame.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
  Her fawning love with foule disdainefull spight
  He would not shend
- c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
  Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your greatness back?
(archaic) To blame.
(archaic) To destroy; to spoil.
- 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume II, page 279:
  Go see their fleet and arms, their manner view / of moulded metal, ready all to shend[.]
(archaic) To overpower; to surpass.
- 1880, Richard Francis Burton, Os Lusíadas, volume II, page 339:
  Since sware the Parcæ unto me, their friend, / they shall adore my name, my favour prize; / and, as their feats of armèd prowess shend / all feats of rival Rome, I lief devise / some mode of aidance in what things I may, / far as our force o'er man extendeth sway.

Conjugation of shend