shack n : small crude shelter used as a dwelling [syn: hovel, hut, hutch, shanty]

1 make one's home or live in; "She resides officially in Iceland"; "I live in a 200-year old house"; "These people inhabited all the islands that are now deserted"; "The plains are sparsely populated" [syn: dwell, reside, live, inhabit, people, populate, domicile, domiciliate]

2 move, proceed, or walk draggingly pr slowly; "John trailed behind behis class mates"; "The Mercedes trailed behind the horse cart" [syn: trail]

English

Etymology 1

rfc-level check placement of Pronunciation

Pronunciation

• /ʃæk/
• Rhymes with: -æk

Noun

1. A crude, roughly built hut or cabin.

Translations

• Danish: skur, hytte
• Finnish: vaja, lato
• Icelandic: kofi, skúr, hreysi
• Slovenian: bajta
• Spanish: choza , jacal italbrac Mexico

Verb

1. To live in or with; to shack up.
2. misspelling of shake

Translations

Etymology 2

Obsolete variant of shake

Noun

1. Grain to the ground and left after harvest.
2. Nuts which have fallen to the ground.
3. Freedom to pasturage in order to feed upon shack.

Quotations

• 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke href="http://books.google.com/books%3Flr%3D%26q%3D%2522right%2Bto%2Bshack%2522&pgis=1">http://books.google.com/books%3Flr%3D%26q%3D%2522right%2Bto%2Bshack%2522&pgis=1

  [...] 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 http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0521567742&id=2CqhjjiwLtEC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&sig=3geUREguU3vTYj_05PtAfzFODDA

  The fields were enclosed by Act in 1791, and Tharp gave the cottagers about thirteen acres for their right of shack.

Verb

1. To shed or fall, as corn or grain at harvest.
2. To feed in stubble, or upon waste corn.

Quotations

• 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke href="http://books.google.com/books%3Flr%3D%26q%3D%2522right%2Bto%2Bshack%2522&pgis=1">http://books.google.com/books%3Flr%3D%26q%3D%2522right%2Bto%2Bshack%2522&pgis=1

  [...] 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.

A shack is a type of small house that is in disrepair. The word may derive from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word xacalli or "adobe house" by way of Mexican Spanish xacal/jacal, which has the same meaning as "shack"http://www.bartleby.com/61/75/S0307500.html. It was a common usage among people of Mexican ancestry throughout the U.S. southwest and was picked up by speakers of American English.

In Australia, particularly in Tasmania, shacks were originally holiday homes located on crown land such as along river banks (especially the Murray River) or near beaches. They were roughly built as they were likely to get washed away in floods, and had no legal title on the land they were built on. Now, a lot of the shack owners have freehold title to their land, and are subject to building codes to reduce the risk of damage or injury from floods and storms. Many are now quite grand holiday homes and summer houses. The New Zealand equivalent is called a bach.

In South Africa, shacks (also referred to as mikhukhu or imijondolohttp://www.azapo.org.za/publications/utlwangazapo.htm ) are an increasingly common form of accommodation for millions of people and are mostly found in or around urban areas, particularly on the outskirts of larger cities. In recent years shack dwellers have organised major protests around the country. The largest movement of shack dwellers is called Abahlali baseMjondolo (loosely translated: "The Residents from the Shacks"), and is based in Durban.

Other meanings of the word

• In amateur radio jargon, a shack refers to the place where an amateur radio operator's radio sending and receiving apparatus is located and operated. The term originally meant that part of a ship where the radio apparatus was located and operated.
• In military aviation jargon, a "shack" refers to a successful, direct hit on a ground target.
• Bus stops are often referred to as "shacks" by commuters and the common passerby because some bus stops have roofs on top of the stops for shade and protection from the rain.

References

Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words