shack

[shak]

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noun

a rough cabin; shanty.

Informal. radio shack.

Verb Phrases

shack up, Slang.

to live together as spouses without being legally married.
to have illicit sexual relations.
to live in a shack: He's shacked up in the mountains.

Origin of shack

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

shack

[shak]

verb (used with object) Informal.

to chase and throw back; to retrieve: to shack a ground ball.

Origin of shack

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

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for shack

shed, shelter, lean-to, hut, cottage, cabin, camp

Examples from the Web for shack

Contemporary Examples of shack

For many, many good reasons, school is not an ideal time to shack up with your soul mate.
Dear Princeton Mom, Stop Telling Me To Husband-Hunt
Emily Shire
February 14, 2014
Heading into the small makeshift kitchen inside his shack he retrieved a large jar of polenta.
Two Chickens, an Old Guitar, and a Group of Strangers: A Life-Changing Feast in Brazil
Annabel Langbein
November 29, 2013
“Yet on May 23, 1976, a Sunday morning, 300 heavily armed soldiers with police vans surrounded our shack,” writes Jalics.
Argentina’s Dirty War Casts a Pall Over Bergoglio
Christopher Dickey
March 15, 2013
So duck into parm and sandwich Little Italy and NOLA together, or grab him a burger from the shack where the lines take forever.
Band of Outsiders Stages Scavenger Hunt for Fall 2013 Collection
Misty White Sidell
February 8, 2013
Supermodel Roommates: Models Cara Delevingne and Georgia May Jagger are about to shack up….
Marc Jacobs for Diet Coke, Delevingne and Jagger Shack Up
The Fashion Beast Team
February 6, 2013

Historical Examples of shack

Then you'll turn around and walk straight back to the shack.
Way of the Lawless
Max Brand
Now, waking, his hand was working nervously across the floor of the shack.
Way of the Lawless
Max Brand
But the shack filled with his disapproval of her reluctance to free him from his promise.
Dust
Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
At the time she came to Martin's shack, she was potentially any one of a half dozen women.
Dust
Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
There were three men camped in the shack here, and we spent the night with them.
The Long Labrador Trail
Dillon Wallace

British Dictionary definitions for shack

shack

noun

a roughly built hut

Southern African temporary accommodation put together by squatters

verb

See shack up

Word Origin for shack

C19: perhaps from dialect shackly ramshackle, from dialect shack to shake

shack

verb

Midland English dialect to evade (work or responsibility)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for shack

1878, American English and Canadian English, of unknown origin, perhaps from Mexican Spanish jacal, from Nahuatl xacalli "wooden hut." Or perhaps a back-formation from dialectal English shackly "shaky, rickety" (1843), a derivative of shack, a dialectal variant of shake (v.). Another theory derives shack from ramshackle.

Slang meaning "house" attested by 1910. In early radio enthusiast slang, it was the word for a room or office set aside for wireless use, 1919, perhaps from earlier U.S. Navy use (1917). As a verb, 1891 in the U.S. West in reference to men who "hole up" for the winter; from 1927 as "to put up for the night;" phrase shack up "cohabit" first recorded 1935 (in Zora Neale Hurston).