Shylock
/ˈʃaɪlɒk/
/ˈʃaɪlɑːk/
- a character in Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. He is a Jewish moneylender who demands a pound of flesh from somebody who cannot pay back the money that he borrowed. Although the play shows him as a person who is treated badly as well as a person who treats others badly, his name is sometimes used in a negative way to describe people who lend money at very high rates of interest.