shack
1 Americanverb (used with object)
noun
-
a roughly built hut
-
temporary accommodation put together by squatters
verb
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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
Explanation
A shack is a small, rundown building used as a shelter. To shack is to live somewhere. If you tell your parents you want to shack up with your best friend, prepare to get grounded. A shack is a tiny, crude shelter that one person might be living in. It’s not well maintained, and it probably has peeling paint and a leaky roof. A shack is a big step below a house and a small step above a refrigerator box. To shack is to live somewhere, especially somewhere that's not nice. Shacking up is kind of like crashing on someone’s couch, or living somewhere temporarily.
Vocabulary lists containing shack
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Outside a nearby shack Linkie listens with interest as she cleans clothes in a large metal bucket.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
People stop by Amadou Gaye's shack at the market in the western town of Sukuta to use his small electric mill to grind millet for cooking porridge or the local steamed grain dish called chere.
From Barron's ● Sep. 17, 2026
In 2002, Itay Zar set up camp with his then-pregnant wife in a one-room shack with a dirt floor, two horses and a John Deere tractor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026
She was born in the hills of Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children of a sharecropper and his wife who lived in a shack without electricity or running water.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
JP picks up Cocoa, and we hurry outta the shack.
From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas
Where beach shacks once stood, now you’ll find estates hidden behind hedges and marinas packed with yachts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026
Across the country, there are still farms operating under 1960s standards – tin shacks, walls made of baked soil or cement bricks, and no fencing.
From BBC ● Nov. 30, 2025
Many residents of densely-populated areas live in precarious conditions, treading through dust and living beneath tin shacks, a far cry from the lavish "Beverly Hills"-style villas of Cocody where ministers and football stars reside.
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2025
Tourists see abundance — the beach houses, the boutiques, the seafood shacks — but the year-round population lives in an entirely different economy.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2025
Lola loves to tell us her memories of these colorful little stores and shacks in the Philippines where everyone stops for sodas and treats on hot, humid days.
From "The House That Lou Built" by Mae Respicio
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
