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:
Plus, Canada’s Mark Carney puts his trade doctrine to the test, and a billionaire’s seafood shack sparks a fight with Montauk locals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
At her bamboo-and-tarpaulin shack in Cox's Bazar, Begum says her dreams of freedom sank with the boat.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
To build it they flipped the longtime Silver Spoon diner into their modern seafood shack, alongside their business partners Donato Poto, Amy Specter Nickoloff and Craig Nickoloff.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 23, 2026
"It was a little tenant farmer's house and it really was a love shack," she says.
From BBC ● Mar. 17, 2026
I bought an old Ford truck with a dog box on it, found a shack in the woods in northern Minnesota, and tried training there.
From This Side of Wild by Gary Paulsen
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
The beachside shacks and cheap backpacker hotels hugging the bay in the state often dubbed India's party capital are full with tourists.
From BBC ● May 16, 2026
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
Hanako spotted a group of old wooden buildings, a couple of them almost shacks, in the distance, and Papa led them through the weeds toward that.
From "A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata
Definitions 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.
