shack

Meanings

Noun

• A crude, roughly built hut or cabin.
• Any poorly constructed or poorly furnished building.
• The room from which a ham radio operator transmits.
• Grain fallen to the ground and left after harvest.
• Nuts which have fallen to the ground.
• Freedom to pasturage in order to feed upon shack.
• A shiftless fellow; a low, itinerant beggar; a vagabond; a tramp.
• Bait that can be picked up at sea.

Verb

• To live (in or with); to shack up.
• To shed or fall, as corn or grain at harvest.
• To feed in stubble, or upon waste.
• To wander as a vagabond or tramp.
• To hibernate; to go into winter quarters.

Origin

• Origin unknown. Some authorities derive this word from Mexican Spanish jacal, from Nahuatl xacalli ("adobe hut").
• Alternatively, the word may instead come from ramshackle/ramshackly (e.g., old ramshackly house) or perhaps it may be a .
• Obsolete variant of shake. Compare Scots shag.