shandygaff

shandygaff noun: a mixture of strong beer and ginger beer.

Noun

shandygaff (countable and uncountable, plural shandygaffs)

A mixture of strong beer and ginger beer.
- “A bottle of beer for the cabman there at that table,” said Tom. “Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this one here; and you sit down with us. Let me make you acquainted with my friend, Mr. Carthew. I've come on business, Billy; I want to consult you as a friend; I'm going into the...1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, “chapter 22”, in The Wrecker
- On that side, plain for hundreds of miles; on this, forest: there, they drink squash and shandygaff; here, whisky and strong beer1894, Horace Tucker, “chapter 32”, in The New Arcadia

“Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this one here; and you sit down with us.1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, “chapter 22”, in The Wrecker:
There I encountered one of the best beakers of shandygaff in my experience.1920, Christopher Morley, “South Broad Street”, in Travels in Philadelphia:

plural	shandygaffs

The origin is unknown. Perhaps from dialectal shandy (“boisterous, empty-headed”) + gaff (“outcry, nonsense”).

What does shandygaff mean?: Shandygaff means a mixture of strong beer and ginger beer.
How do you use shandygaff in a sentence?: “Whatever you please from shandygaff to champagne at this one here; and you sit down with us.
What part of speech is shandygaff?: Shandygaff is a noun.
What is the plural of shandygaff?: The plural of shandygaff is shandygaffs.

Adapted from Wiktionary: shandygaff (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “shandygaff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shandygaff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.