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Definition of Shape-up
1. Noun. A way of hiring longshoremen by the day; applicants gather around a union boss who selects those to be hired.
Lexicographical Neighbors of Shape-up
Literary usage of Shape-up
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the by Charles George Herbermann, Edward Aloysius Pace, Condé Bénoist Pallen, Thomas Joseph Shahan, John Joseph Wynne (1913)
"In the fourteenth century this form of mitre began to be distorted in shape.
Up to ornamented with about five hundred more or less costly precious stones; ..."
2. A Treatise on Roads and Pavements by Ira Osborn Baker (1918)
"To shape up the road in the spring, six horses and three men are required to
operate the ... Either size machine can shape up a roadway 10 or 12 feet Fio. ..."
3. National Drug Control Policy: Interdiction Efforts in Florida and the edited by J. Dennis Hastert (2001)
"In a major reform, the Act abolished this infamous hiring practice of the "shape-up"3
which was injurious both to waterfront workers and to the port as a ..."
4. Journal of the British Dental Association by British Dental Association (1894)
"(A) Now in the first of these we shall have to cut off the crown, shape up the
surface of the root, shape up and ream out the canal. ..."
5. The Modern English Verb-adverb Combination by Arthur Garfield Kennedy (1920)
"... rust up, scratch up, scuff up, shape up, shine up, skin up, slash up, slick
up, slosh up, smear up, smell up, smoke up, smooth up, snarl up, sober up, ..."
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