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)
British Dictionary definitions for shack up

shack up

verb
1.
(slang) (intransitive, adverb) usually foll by with. to live or take up residence, esp with a mistress or lover

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 up

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 up

shack up

verb phrase
  1. To live with, do the sex act with, and support a woman who is not one's wife; keep a mistress: The medicine man had shacked up with a half-breed cook/ When I was 13 I shacked up with a Puerto Rican chick of 38 (1935+)
  2. To do the sex act; esp, to lead a promiscuous sex life; sleep around: If you drink and shack up with strangers you get old at thirty (1940s+)
  3. To live; reside, esp in a nonpermanent place: got rid of his home and shacked up in a hotel (1950+)

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]


Idioms and Phrases with shack up

shack up

.
Sleep together or live in sexual intimacy without being married. For example, They had been dating for two months and then decided to shack up. [ ; first half of 1900s ]
.
Stay or reside with, as in I'm shacking up with my cousin till I find a place of my own. [ ; first half of 1900s ]