shimmy

A back-formation from chemise (mistaken for a plural).

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɪ.mi/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪmi

shimmy (plural shimmies)

1. A dance move involving thrusting the shoulders back and forth alternately.
2. A dance that was popular in the 1920s.
   • 1930, Jefferis & Nichols, Safe Counsel or Practical Eugenics, page 200:

     The tango, the Texas Tommy, Walking the Dog, the one step, the fox trot, the shimmy, and all their out-growths, had their origin in the palaces of lust on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco.

3. An abnormal vibration, especially in the wheels of a vehicle.
4. (rare) A sleeveless chemise.

• shimmy shake
• shimmy-shammy

shimmy (third-person singular simple present shimmies, present participle shimmying, simple past and past participle shimmied)

1. (dance) To perform a shimmy (dance movement involving thrusting the shoulders back and forth alternately).
   • 1934, James T. Farrell, chapter 13, in The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan:

     She wondered would he think her awful, and try to get fresh if she shimmied. Fellows often did. But he was so cute. And a girl had to something about that, and if she didn't shimmy, she might do something worse.

2. To climb something (e.g. a pole) gradually (e.g. using alternately one's arms then one's legs).

   He shimmied up the flagpole.

   The static made her dress shimmy up her leg.

3. (intransitive) To vibrate abnormally, as a broken wheel.
   • 1966, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, New York: Bantam Books, published 1976, →ISBN, page 37:

     They came in among earth-moving machines, a total absence of trees, the usual hieratic geometry, and eventually, shimmying for the sand roads, down in a helix to a sculptured body of water named Lake Inverarity.

4. (intransitive, rare) To shake the body as if dancing the shimmy.
5. (intransitive, video games) To move across a narrow ledge, either by hanging from it or by strafing on it along the wall.
   • 2009, Allison Schubert, Lunabean.com's Videogame Guides of 2008: Adventure 3-Pack:

     Jump up to the ledge on your right and shimmy around the corner.

   • 1999, Prima Development, The Big PlayStation Book:

     Climb on top of the room and drop down to shimmy along its back ledge.

• (climb a pole): shinny, shin (UK, Canada)

• shimmy on down

shimmy m (plural shimmys)

1. shimmy (1920s dance)

• “shimmy”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.