shack

¹ American  

[shak] / ʃæk /

noun

1. a rough cabin; shanty.

2. Informal. radio shack.

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verb phrase

1. shack up

   1. to live together as spouses without being legally married.

   2. to have illicit sexual relations.

   3. to live in a shack.

      He's shacked up in the mountains.

shack ² American  

[shak] / ʃæk /

verb (used with object)

Informal.

1. to chase and throw back; to retrieve.

   to shack a ground ball.

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shack ¹ British  

/ ʃæk /

noun

1. a roughly built hut

2. temporary accommodation put together by squatters

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verb

1. See shack up

shack ² British  

/ ʃæk /

verb

1. dialect to evade (work or responsibility)

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Etymology

Origin of shack¹

1875–80, compare earlier shackly rickety, probably akin to ramshackle ( Mexican Spanish jacal “hut” is a phonetically impossible source)

Origin of shack²

1825–35, apparently special use of dial. shack to shake

Example Sentences

It might be some remote barn or shepherd’s hut or forester’s shack—it didn’t matter.

From Literature

"It was a little tenant farmer's house and it really was a love shack," she says.

From BBC

Iditarod is a ghost town, just a few shacks left over from the gold rush, when ten thousand people lived there.

From Literature

He eventually found 7 ½ West End Court in Long Branch, New Jersey, a twenty-five-foot-wide shotgun shack that sat a few blocks away from the beach.

From Salon

There was an old man sitting in front of a wooden shack, spinning.

From Literature

Related Words

• cabin
• cottage
• hut
• lean-to
• shed
• shelter