shindy

Noun

shindy (countable and uncountable, plural shindies or shindys)

1. A shindig.
   • She and Eileen are giving a shindy for Gladys—that's Gerald's new acquisition, you know. So if you don't mind butting into a baby-show we'll run down.1907, Robert W. Chambers, The Younger Set, New York: D. Appleton & Co.
   • "Well, from what I hear," Dr. Buckie went on, complacently, "there'll be more shindies. So look out!"1939, John Boynton Priestley, Let the People Sing
2. (slang) An uproar or disturbance; a spree; a row; a riot.
   • "[…] I've married her. And I know there will be an awful shindy at home."1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “LXXIII”, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850...
   • I always do sit with my hands in my pockets except when I am in the company of my sisters, my cousins, or my aunts; and they kick up such a shindy—I should say expostulate so eloquently upon the subject—that I have to give in and take them out—my hands I mean.1886, Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
3. hockey; shinney
   • […] what is even more disgusting still, I have seen children playing at "shindy" in a Churchyard, a skull used as a substitute for a ball, and large fragments of leg or arm-bones in the place of sticks.1841, anonymous author, The Living and the Dead: A Letter to the People of England, on the State of their Churchyards, London: Whittaker & Co., page 31
4. (US, dated, dialectal) A fancy or liking.
   • "Father took a wonderful shindy to her, for even old men can't help liking beauty. […]"1855, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, chapter V, in Nature and Human Nature