Etymologically
Log in

shack

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 15:22. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

Etymology

The origin is unclear.[2][3][4] The American Heritage Dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Klein take it as probably a back-formation from English shackly (“shaky, rickety”), a dialect word of the southern United States,[5][6][7] which comes from a dialect verb meaning to shake, a frequentative of a dialect form of shake.[7][8][2] Others suggest it is a shortening of the Mexican Spanish word jacal (“hut”), from Classical Nahuatl xacalli (“wooden hut”),[9][10][11][12][8] first proposed by J. Platt in “Notes and Queries”;[3] Dictionary.com rejects this as phonetically impossible and relates the word to ramshackle instead,[13] a derivation Barnhart and Etymonline also mention.[8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A roughly built cabin or shanty of logs, mud and the like: 1878, in a United States report on Indian affairs.[3][8] Etymonline says it was used at first in American and Canadian English of the temporary dwellings homesteaders put up while securing a claim.[2]

Semantic evolution

In American slang shack also came to mean any house (1910),[3][2] and among early radio enthusiasts a room set aside for the wireless set, the radio shack (1919 in Etymonline, 1929 in the OED).[2][3] A verb shack, to live in a shack, is recorded from 1891 according to Barnhart, in 1895 in the OED.[8][3] It was used in the American West of men who "holed up" for the winter, and later of lodging for the night;[2][3] the phrase shack up, to live with a lover, is first recorded in 1935, in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men,[3][2][8] with a transitive to be shacked up from 1927.[3] In South Africa the noun also refers to a squatter's makeshift shelter.[14]

Timeline

  • 1878 – a roughly built cabin or hut.[3][8][2]
  • 1891 – verb, to dwell, according to Barnhart.[8]
  • 1895 – verb, to live in a shack.[3]
  • 1910 – US slang, a house.[3][2]
  • 1919 – a room for wireless equipment, according to Etymonline.[2]
  • 1927 – shacked up, lodged, especially with a sexual partner.[3]
  • 1935 – shack up, to cohabit.[3][8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small, roughly built house or hut; a shanty: They lived in a tin shack at the edge of the field.[6][14][3]
  2. (US slang) A house.[3][11]
  3. A room or building for a radio operator.[3][2]
  4. (South Africa) A makeshift dwelling put up by squatters.[14]

Verb

  1. shack up (slang): to live with someone as a sexual partner without being married; also, to stay somewhere for the night.[14][3][11]
  2. To live in a shack; to dwell.[6][3]

Word family

  • cookshack
  • radio shack

Usage notes

Several older words of the same spelling, mostly dialectal, are separate: shack grain left on the field after harvest (1536), a dialect form of shake;[3][11][6] shack an idle vagabond (1682), perhaps short for shack-rag, shake-rag;[3][11][12] and in North American slang shack a railway brakeman (1899), of unknown origin.[3][11][6]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins