shall 
B. As an auxiliary. 1. Am (is, are, was, etc.) 
obliged or compelled (to); will (or would) have 
(to); must; ought (to): used with an infinitive 
(without to) to express obligation, necessity, or 
duty in connection with some act yet to be car- 
ried out. 
Men seyn that sche schalle so endure in that forme. 
MandeviUe, Travels, p. 23. 
For ye shul nat tarye, 
Though in this toun is noon apotecarie, 
I ahal myself to herbes techen yow. 
Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, L 127. 
To folewe that lord we schuUen be fayn, 
in what degree that euere we stood. 
Hymns to Virgin, etc. (E. E. T. S.), p. 33. 
This is a f erly thinge that thow hast seide, I sholde ven- 
quyse myn enmyes in a litere. Merlin (E. E. T. S.), i. 93. 
The baner of a kynge sholde not ben hidde, and namly 
in bataile, but to be born in the forraest fronte. 
Hferlin (E. E. T. S.), iii. 405. 
I should report that which I say I saw, 
But know not how to do it. 
Shak., Macbeth, v. 6. 81. 
To subdue or expell an usurper should be noe u njust en- 
terprize nor wrongfull warre. Spenser, State of Ireland. 
When Kings rise higher than they should, they exhale 
Subjects higher than they would. 
If. Ward, Simple Cobler, p. 49. 
2. Am (is, are, was, etc.) to (dp something spe- 
cified by the infinitive): forming verb-phrases 
having the value of future and conditional 
tenses, and usually (and properly enough) 
called such, (a) Shall is used in direct assertion to 
form the first persons singular and plural of the future 
and future-perfect tenses, the second and third persons 
in these tenses being formed by unit. In this connection 
shall simply foretells or declares what is about to take 
place : as, I shall go to town to-morrow ; we shall spend 
the summer in Europe. The future tense of the verb go 
thus becomes 
I shall ) 
Thou wilt vgo; 
He mil ) 
We shall ) 
You will fgo. 
They will ) 
" The use of shall instead of will in the first person is proba- 
bly due to the fact that the act thus announced as about 
to take place ensues from the duty or obligation arising 
outwardly but contemplated inwardly as proper, and con- 
sequently as now about to take place in virtue of a tacit 
act of the speaker's will. Should the will or resolution of 
the speaker intervene, or be prominent in his mind, then 
will would be the proper word to express the futurity of 
the act: thus, 'I will go' means 'I am determined to go, 
' I have made up my mind to go.' ' I shall go home this 
evening' announces a future event as settled by consid- 
eration outside of the speaker's self ; ' I will go home this 
evening ' announces a future event having both its cause 
and its accomplishment in the speaker's own mind." (Dr. 
Beard.) In indirect assertion shall may express mere fu- 
turity in the second and third persons : as, he says that he 
shall go ; he said that he should go : in these sentences 
"he" refers to one and the same person, the one who 
"says." If it referred to any other person, will would be 
used and not shall. 
That woman had to water her soup with her furtive 
tears, to sit of nights behind hearts and spades, and brood 
over her crushed hopes. If I contemplate that wretched 
old Niobe much longer, I shall begin to pity her. 
Thackeray, Philip, II. xiii. 
" Well, we shall all miss you quite as much as you will 
miss us," said the master. 
T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Kugby, ii. 8. 
I shall stay and sleep in the church. 
George Eliot, Eomola, xiv. 
(6) In the second and third persons shall implies author- 
ity or control on the part of the speaker, and is used to 
express (1) promise : as, you shall receive your wages ; (2) 
command : as, thou shall not steal ; (3) determination : 
as, you shall go. 
My glass shall not persuade me I am old, 
So long as youth and thou are of one date. 
Shak., Sonnets, xzii. 
Ne'er stare nor put on wonder, for you must 
Endure me, and you shall. 
Beau, and Fl., Philaster, i. 1. 
But she shall have him ; I will make her happy, if I 
break her heart for it. Col-man, Jealous Wife, ii. 
(4) Certainty or inevitability as regards the future. 
And if I die, no man shall pity me [that is, it is certain 
no man will pity me). Shak., Eich. III., v. 3. 201. 
(c) Interrogatively, shall or will is used according as the 
one or the other would be used in reply, and accordingly 
'shall I go?' 'shall we go?' 'shall he go?' 'shall they go?' 
ask for direction, or refer the matter to the determination 
of the person asked that is, 'shall I go?' anticipates the 
answer 'you shall go.' 
Pan. But will you tell me ? Shall I marry ? 
Trouil. Perhaps. Urquhart, tr. of Rabelais, iii. 36. 
I was employ'd in passing to and fro, 
About relieving of the sentinels : 
Then how or which way should they first break in? 
Shak., 1 Hen. VI. , ii. 1. 71. 
(d) After conditionals, such as if or whether, and after 
verbs expressing condition or supposition, shall expresses 
simple futurity in all persons, the idea of restraint or 
necessity involved originally in the word shall being ex- 
cluded by the context thus : 
( I (or we) shall 
v\ 
Thou shall, or you shall V say. 
( He (or they) shall } ' 
5546 
// then we shall [that is, are to) shake off our slavish yoke, 
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing, 
Away with me! Shak., Rich. II., ii. 2. 291. 
A man would be laugh'd at by most people who should 
maintain that too much money could undo a nation. 
B. Manderille, Fable of the Bees, p. 213. 
That man would do a great and permanent service to 
the ministry who should publish a catalogue of the books 
in history . . . 
Southey, Wesley, I. 309, note (quoted in F. Hall's False 
[Philol., p. 49). 
In the older writers, as for instance in the authorized 
version of the Bible, shall was used of all three persons. 
Whose wprcheth bi wil, wraththe maketh ofte; 
I sigge hit bi thi-seluen, thou schalt hit sone fyude. 
Piers Plowman (A), iv. 57. 
Lord, howe je vs lere, 
Full wele we take rewarde, 
And certis we schall not rest. 
York Plays, p. 152. 
The London fleet of twenty sail (whose admiral shall be 
Captain Philpot, a Kentish man, who heretofore fought a 
duel between the two armies in the Low Countries), being 
all ready, have this fortnight been suing for their despatch. 
Court and Times of Charles I., I. 161. 
filmll, like other auxiliaries, is often used with an ellipsis 
of the following infinitive. 
Men dreme of thing that nevere was ne shal. 
Chaucer, Nun's Priest's Tale, L 274. 
It shall [so. go] to the barber's with your beard. 
Shak., Hamlet, ii. 2. 521. 
From the Devil they came, and to the Devil they shall 
[so. assuredly go]. Baker, Chronicles, p. 58. 
You have not pushed these diseased neither with side 
nor shoulder, but have rather strewed their way into the 
Palace with flowers, as you should. 
Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, ii. 
3. The past tense should, besides the uses in 
which it is merely the preterit of shall, as above, 
has acquired some peculiar uses of its own. in 
some of these uses should represents the past subjunctive, 
not the past indicative. It is not used to express simple 
past futurity, except in indirect speech : as, I said I should 
[was to] go ; I arranged that he should [was to] go. Should 
is often used to give a modest or diffident tone to a state- 
ment, or to soften a statement from motives of delicacy or 
politeness : thus, ' I should not like to say how many there 
are ' is much the same as ' I hardly like,' or 'I do not like,' 
etc. Similarly, 'it sluwlil seem ' Is often nearly the same 
as 'it seems.' 
Be is no suitor then ? So it should seem. 
B. Jonson. 
Should was formerly sometimes used where we should 
now use might. 
The scribis and Pharisees aspieden hym that theischulden 
fynde cause whereof thei schulden accuse hym. 
Wycftf, Luke vi. 7. 
The distinctions in the uses of shall and will and of 
should and would are often so subtle, and depend so much 
upon the context or upon subjective conditions, that they 
are frequently missed by inaccurate speakers and writers, 
and often even by writers of the highest rank. There is a 
tendency in colloquial English to the exclusive use of mil 
and (except after a conditional word) would. See icilli. 
Ceesar should [would] be a beast without a heart 
If he should stay at home to-day for fear. 
Shalt., J. C., ii. 2. 42. 
I will win for him an I can ; if not, I wOl [shall] gain 
nothing but my shame and the odd hits. 
Shak., Hamlet, v. 2. 183. 
Nay, if you find fault with it, they shall [will] whisper, 
tho I did not like it before ; I'll ha' no body wiser than 
myself. Wycherley, Gentleman Dancing-Master, Iv. 1. 
=Syn. Ought, Should. See oughts. 
shall 2 (shal), n. [Ar.] An African siluroid fish 
of the genus Synodontis; specifically, S. schalot 
the Nile, a kind of catfish with a small mouth, 
long movable teeth in the lower jaw, a nuchal 
buckler, and six barbels. Also schal. 
shall! (shal'i), n. [Also challi, challis; appar. 
same as Anglo-Ind. shalee, shaloo, < Hind. 
sdlu, a soft twilled cotton stuff of a Turkey-red 
color.] A red or otherwise colored cotton stuff 
or piece-goods of soft texture, made in India, 
and much worn by the poorer natives. The later 
and finer shallis of England and France seem to be modi- 
fications of the Indian fabric. 
A large investment of piece-goods, especially of the 
coarse ones, Byrampauts, chelloes, and others, for the 
Guinea market. Grose, Voyage to the East Indies, I. 99. 
shallon (shal'on), n. [Amer. Ind. (reported in 
this form by Lewis and Clarke) ; cf . salal-berry.'} 
The salal-berry, Gaultheria Shallon. 
shalloon (sha-lon'), n. [< ME. chalon, chaloun, 
a coverlet (see ehalon) (= Sp. chalon, chalun = 
MHG. schaliine, G. schalun, shalloon), < OF. 
chalons (cf. F. ras de Chdlotis, Chalons cloth), 
so called from Chalons, F. ClulIons-sur-Marne, 
a town in France, < L. Catalauni, a tribe that 
lived in the neighborhood. For similar cloth- 
names of local origin, see cambric, muslin, 
worsted-, etc.] A light woolen stuff used for 
the linings of coats and for women's dresses. 
Shalloon, a sort of woolen stuff, chiefly used for the lin- 
ings of coats, and so call'd from Chalons, a city of France, 
where it was first made. E. Phillips, 170fi. 
shallow 
In addition to the woollen fabrics, shalloons, caliman- 
coes, and tammies were made in considerable numbers in 
this town and neighborhood [of Colne]. 
Baines, Hist. Lancashire, II. 30. 
Shallop (shal'op), n. [= G. schaluppe, < OF. 
chaluppe = Sp. Pg. clialupa = It. scialnppa, a 
shallop; origin unknown, but prob. Amer. or 
E. Ind. Cf. sloop.] A light boat or vessel, with 
or without a mast or masts ; a sloop. 
A little bote lay hoving her before ; . . . 
Into the same shee lept, and with the ore 
Did thrust the shallop from the floting strand. 
Spenser, F. Q., III. vii. 27. 
A shallop of one Henry Way of Dorchester having been 
missing all the winter, it was found that the men in her, 
being five, were all killed treacherously by the eastern 
Indians. Winthrop, Hist. New England, I. 95. 
shallot (sha-lof), n. [Also schallot, and for- 
merly shalot, schalote, chalot, eschalot (= D. 
sjalot = G. scltalotte = Sw. sclialott = Dan. 
skalot) ; < OF. eschalote, esvlialotte, F. Schalote, 
an altered form, simulating a dim. term., of 
OF. eschalone, escalogne, escalone, whence E. 
scallion: see scallion.'] A vegetable of the onion 
kind, Allium Ascalonicum, native in Syria, and 
elsewhere cultivated ; the scallion or cibol. The 
bulb forms bulblets or cloves in the axils of the scales, 
like the garlic and rocambole. The shallot is considered 
milder than the onion, and is used in cookery and esteemed 
for pickles. 
Insipid taste, old friend, to them who Paris know. 
Where rocombole, shallot, and the rank garlic grow. 
W. King, Art of Cookery, 1. 336. 
shallow 1 (shal'6), a. and n. [< ME. shalow, sclial- 
owe, shallow, prob. lit. 'sloping, shelving,' for 
"schelowe, < AS. *seeolh (in comp. scelg-, sceol-, 
seal-, scyl-), sloping, oblique, squint (found only 
in comp. scelff-egede, sceol-egede, scul-egede, scyl- 
egede, scyl-cdgede, sceol-ege, sceol-ige, squint- 
eyed), = MD. schelwe, ssheel, D. scheel = MLG. 
schel = OHG. scelah (scelh-, scelaw-), MHG. 
schelch, schel (schelh-, schelw-), G. scheel, slop- 
ing, crooked, squint, = Icel. skjdlgr, oblique, 
wry, squint (as a noun, applied to the crescent 
moon, to a fish, and as a nickname of a person), 
= Sw. dial, skjalg, oblique, wry, crooked (not 
found in Goth. ) ; perhaps, with a formative gut- 
tural, from a base *skel = Gr. am^tof, crooked, 
wry, akin to oKa'Jiqvoe, uneven, scalene, anc/Mf, 
crook-legged: see scoliosis, scalene. The sense 
'shallow' appears only in E. The E. forms 
are somewhat irregular, the ME. forms shaloic, 
schalowe being associated with other forms of 
Scand. origin, schald, schold, etc., early mod. 
E. shold, E. shoal, Sc. shaul, shallow, which, to- 
gether with the related verbs shail 1 and shelve 2 , 
exhibit variations of the vowel, as well as ter- 
minal variations due to the orig. guttural. See 
shoali, sliaiP-, shelve 2 , shelf 2 .] \ o . j. Not 
deep; of little depth: as, a shallow brook; a 
shallow place ; a shallow vessel or dish. 
Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords. 
Shak., Lucrece, 1. 1329. 
Shallow water, crisp with ice nine months of the year, is 
fatal to the race of worms. Nodes Ambrosianse, Feb., 1832. 
2. Not deep intellectually ; superficial : as, a 
shallow person ; a shallow mind. 
My wit 's too shallow for the least Designe 
Of thy drad Counsails sacred, and divine. 
Sylvester, tr. of Du Bartas's Weeks, i. 7. 
In my shallow Apprehension your Grace might stand 
more firm without an Anchor. Howell, Letters, I. iv. 18. 
Shallow ground, land with gold near the surface. [Min- 
ing slang, Australia.] 
II. . A place where the water is not deep; 
a shoal ; a shelf ; a flat ; a bank. 
There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
Shak., J. C.,iv. 3.221. 
Thou hast left Life's shallows, 
And dost possess the deep. 
Lowell, A Requiem. 
shallow 1 (shal'6), v. [< shallow^, a. Cf. shoal 1 , 
v., and shelve 2 , v.) I. trans. To make shallow; 
decrease the depth of. 
In long process of time, the silt and sands shall . . . 
choke and shallow the sea in and about it [Venice]. 
Sir T. Browne, Misc. Tracts, xii. 
That thought alone thy state impairs, 
Thy lofty sinks, and shallows thy profound. 
Young, Night Thoughts, ix. 
II. intrans. To become shallow; decrease in 
depth : as, the water shallows rapidly as one 
approaches the bar. 
The involution is regular, being deepest in the centre, 
and shalloiving in all directions towards the edge. 
Micros. Set., N. S., XXX. 524. 
Shallow 2 (shal'6), n. [Cf . shallow^.] The rudd, 
a fish. [Local, Eng.] 
