Shack

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ʃæk/
• Rhymes: -æk

Some authorities derive this word from Nahuatl xacalli ("adobe hut")

American Heritage 2000

. Some authorities have claimed this origin is phonetically impossible because they assume "jacal" starts with the Spanish sound h, when in fact the native word started with the sound ʃ. The word may instead come from ramshackle.

Dictionary.com

Full definition of shack

Noun

1. A crude, roughly built hut or cabin.
• 1913, w, Lord Stranleigh Abroad Chapter 6, The men resided in a huge bunk house, which consisted of one room only, with a shack outside where the cooking was done. In the large room were a dozen bunks ; half of them in a very dishevelled state, …
2. Any unpleasant, poorly constructed or poorly furnished building.

Verb

1. To live in or with; to shack up.

Obsolete variant of shake. Compare Scots shag ("refuse of barley or oats").

Noun

1. (obsolete) Grain fallen to the ground and left after harvest.
2. (obsolete) Nuts which have fallen to the ground.
3. (obsolete) Freedom to pasturage in order to feed upon shack.
• 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=OCLC11859773&id=rI0iE-yqyAMC&q=%22right+to+shack%22&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Flr%3D%26q%3D%2522right%2Bto%2Bshack%2522&pgis=1... first comes the case of tenants with a customary right to shack their sheep and cattle who have overburdened the fields with a larger number of beasts than their tenement entitles them to, or who have allowed their beasts to feed in the field out of shack time.
• 1996, J M Neeson, Commoners http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0521567742&id=2CqhjjiwLtEC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&sig=3geUREguU3vTYj_05PtAfzFODDAThe fields were enclosed by Act in 1791, and Tharp gave the cottagers about thirteen acres for their right of shack.
4. (UK, US, dialect, obsolete) A shiftless fellow; a low, itinerant beggar; a vagabond; a tramp.
• Henry Ward BeecherAll the poor old shacks about the town found a friend in Deacon Marble.

Derived terms

• common of shack

Verb

1. (obsolete) To shed or fall, as corn or grain at harvest.
2. (obsolete) To feed in stubble, or upon waste.
• 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=OCLC11859773&id=rI0iE-yqyAMC&q=%22right+to+shack%22&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Flr%3D%26q%3D%2522right%2Bto%2Bshack%2522&pgis=1... first comes the case of tenants with a customary right to shack their sheep and cattle who have overburdened the fields with a larger number of beasts than their tenement entitles them to, or who have allowed their beasts to feed in the field out of shack time.
3. (UK, dialect) To wander as a vagabond or tramp.

Anagrams

• hacks