shack
pronunciation
How to pronounce shack in British English:
UK [ʃæk]
How to pronounce shack in American English:
US [ʃæk]
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- Noun:
- small crude shelter used as a dwelling
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- Verb:
- make one's home or live in
- move, proceed, or walk draggingly pr slowly
Word Origin
- shack (n.)
- 1878, American English and Canadian English, of unknown origin, perhaps from Mexican Spanish jacal, from Nahuatl (Aztecan) xacalli "wooden hut." Or perhaps a back-formation from dialectal English shackly "shaky, rickety" (1843), a derivative of shack, a dialectal variant of shake (v.). Another theory derives shack from ramshackle. Slang meaning "house" attested by 1910. In early radio enthusiast slang, it was the word for a room or office set aside for wireless use, 1919, perhaps from earlier U.S. Navy use (1917). As a verb, 1891 in the U.S. West in reference to men who "hole up" for the winter; from 1927 as "to put up for the night;" phrase shack up "cohabit" first recorded 1935 (in Zora Neale Hurston).
Example
- 1. A rundown shack on the property had become the home of a very large water monitor lizard .
- 2. You see , if I 'm living in a shack , how can I help you get a mansion ?
- 3. Home was a driftwood shack above one of britain 's remotest beaches and time didn 't seem to have much meaning .
- 4. 4 / 16 Dadaab , kenya : a veiled somali refugee walks past a shack in the main market at dagahaley camp .
- 5. Sitting together in a small red-tiled shack , one says her 25-year-old son has disappeared , like hundreds of tamil youths in the past three years .