shack1

[shak] /ʃæk/
noun
1.
a rough cabin; shanty.
2.
Informal. radio shack.
Verb phrases
3.
shack up, Slang.
  1. to live together as spouses without being legally married.
  2. to have illicit sexual relations.
  3. to live in a shack:
    He's shacked up in the mountains.
Origin
1875-80, Americanism; compare earlier shackly rickety, probably akin to ramshackle (Mexican Spanish jacal “hut” is a phonetically impossible source)

shack2

[shak] /ʃæk/
verb (used with object), Informal.
1.
to chase and throw back; to retrieve:
to shack a ground ball.
Origin
1825-35, Americanism; apparently special use of dial. shack to shake
Examples from the web for shack
  • If the firm is awarded the bid, then the firm shall obtain an occupational license and provide insurance for the job shack.
  • People also used to walk uphill in the snow to learn their letters in a one room shack.
  • It was really awful, the haves right next to the havenots, a big old house next to a shack.
  • Their destination is a plywood shack in the protective embrace of a small rock outcropping-directly in the path of an avalanche.
  • Watching the stars at his brothers shack in the hills.
  • Perhaps we'll harness the potential energy of our own orbital mechanics to shack up with a new star system when the time comes.
  • The first, fine, but there was never any indication they couldn't make other hybrids any time they wanted to shack up.
  • One is a weather-worn shack of rotting wood and decaying paint.
  • He'd had no choice but to know her, since only a sheet had divided her shack from his own.
  • But instead of heading toward the kitchen shack to place an order, the driver goes to his car and brings back a plastic bag.
British Dictionary definitions for shack

shack1

/ʃæk/
noun
1.
a roughly built hut
2.
(South African) temporary accommodation put together by squatters
verb
3.
See shack up
Word Origin
C19: perhaps from dialect shackly ramshackle, from dialect shack to shake

shack2

/ʃæk/
verb
1.
(Midland English, dialect) to evade (work or responsibility)
Word Origin and History for shack
n.

1878, American English and Canadian English, of unknown origin, perhaps from Mexican Spanish jacal, from Nahuatl 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).

Slang definitions & phrases for shack

shack

noun
  1. The caboose of a freight train (1899+ Railroad, hoboes & circus)
  2. A railroad brake operator, who rode in the caboose (1899+ Railroad, hoboes & circus)
  3. shack job (1940s+)
verb

shack up (1940s+)

[fr shack, ''hut, shanty,'' found by 1878, probably fr earlier shackle fr American Spanish jacal fr Aztec xacalli]