# shack
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ʃæk/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -æk

### Etymology 1

Unknown. Some authorities derive this word from Mexican Spanish jacal, from Nahuatl xacalli (“adobe hut”).
Alternatively, the word may instead come from ramshackle/ramshackly (e.g., old ramshackly house) or perhaps it may be a back-formation from shackly.

#### Noun

shack (plural shacks)
* A crude, roughly built hut or cabin.
    Synonyms: hovel, shanty
** 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 6, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎: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, […]
* Any poorly constructed or poorly furnished building.
** 1944 January and February, E. R. McCarter, “The Cairn Valley Light Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 48:The stations are generally very poor, even for a branch line; some are mere wooden shacks, and Moniaive itself is one of the least prepossessing terminal stations I have ever seen.
* (slang) The room from which a ham radio operator transmits.

##### Derived terms

* clam shack
* love shack
* radio shack
* shack rat
* shack-shack
* shotgun shack
* sugar shack
* whack shack

##### Translations
#### Verb

shack (third-person singular simple present shacks, present participle shacking, simple past and past participle shacked)
* To live (in or with); to shack up.

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

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

#### Noun

shack (countable and uncountable, plural shacks)
* (obsolete) Grain fallen to the ground and left after harvest.
* (obsolete) Nuts which have fallen to the ground.
* (obsolete) Freedom to pasturage in order to feed upon shack.
** 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke
    […] 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
    The fields were enclosed by Act in 1791, and Tharp gave the cottagers about thirteen acres for their right of shack.
* (UK, US, dialect, obsolete) A shiftless fellow; a low, itinerant beggar; a vagabond; a tramp.
** 1866, Betsey Jane Ward, Book of Goaks:Some peple hev a fakilty two get along into the world, whilst others air poor shacks & good for nothing.
** 1868, Henry Ward Beecher, Norwood, or Village Life in New England:All the poor old shacks about the town found a friend in Deacon Marble.
* (fishing) Bait that can be picked up at sea.
* (Nigeria, slang) A drink, especially an alcoholic one.

##### Derived terms

* common of shack

#### Verb

shack (third-person singular simple present shacks, present participle shacking, simple past and past participle shacked)
* (obsolete) To shed or fall, as corn or grain at harvest.
* (obsolete) To feed in stubble, or upon waste.
** 1867, “Journal of the Royal Agriculatural Socirty”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):They [turkeys] are then sold‥to the larger farmers to ‘shack’ upon the barley or oat stubbles.
** 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke
    […] 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.
* (UK, dialect) To wander as a vagabond or tramp.
* (US, intransitive) To hibernate; to go into winter quarters.
* (Nigeria, slang) To drink, especially alcohol.

### Etymology 3

From shagged or shagged out.

#### Adjective

shack (comparative more shack, superlative most shack)
* (Singapore, Singlish, slang) Alternative form of shag (“exhausted; tiring”)

### References

* ↑ “shack”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
* ↑ “shack”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

### Anagrams

* hacks, schak