shyster
/ˈʃʌɪstə
/- So now, six years in, what should these shysters, lawyers, and purveyors of vacuous mediocrity do next?
- I put myself out on the line for this guy, and he was nothing but a shyster with a slick lawyer.
- He declared the amount to be ‘good value for money in a business largely conducted by shysters and sharks.’
Origin
Mid 19th century: said to be from Scheuster, the name of a lawyer whose behaviour provoked accusations of ‘scheuster’ practices, perhaps reinforced by German Scheisser 'worthless person'.
An American story goes that there was once an unscrupulous lawyer called Scheuster who gave his name to the shyster, but no record of him has ever been found. It is more likely that German Scheisser ‘worthless person’ formed from Scheisse ‘excrement’, is the word's origin, since it first appeared in New York, home to many German-speaking immigrants, as a term for an unqualified lawyer who preyed on inmates of the notorious prison called the Tombs. Shyster was first recorded in 1843, and soon took on the sense of an unscrupulous lawyer rather than a fake one.
- stand oil
- stand on
- stand on ceremony
- stand one's ground
- stand on me
- stand on one's dignity
- stand on one's own (two) feet
- stand (or stay) the pace
- stand (or stick) out a mile
- stand (or stick) out like a sore thumb
- stand (or turn) something on its head
- stand out
- standout
- stand out a mile
- stand out from the crowd
- stand out like a sore thumb
- stand over
- standover man
- standover merchant
- stand pat
- standpipe
- standpoint
- St Andrews
- St Andrew's cross
- stand sentry