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.
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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
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
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
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
It is a maze of corrugated metal shacks and unpaved roads, close to Alexandra township.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
Hundreds of firefighters have over the past few days been battling blazes in the southwest of France famous for its sand dunes, pine trees, and oyster shacks.
From Barron's ● Jul. 25, 2026
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
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
But as the cold crept deeper into our shacks, it began to chill generosity.
From "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys
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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.
