I. ˈshak noun
( -s )
Etymology: English dialect shack to shake, alteration of shake (I)
1. dialect chiefly England : grain and stubble left on the field after harvest
2. : liberty or right of turning pigs or poultry into fields after harvest to feed on the shack ; also : the land so used
3. : a catch of miscellaneous fish mostly of cheap kinds
II. noun
( -s )
Etymology: perhaps by shortening & alteration from shakerag
1. chiefly dialect : a shiftless fellow : bum , tramp
2. slang : a railroad brakeman
III. intransitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
: to go sluggishly or with a lumbering gait
the old horse shacked along
IV. noun
( -s )
Etymology: probably back-formation from shackly
1. : a small roughly built and often crudely furnished house : hut , shanty
a shack made of old boards and tar paper — C.M.Webster
found inadequate shelter in a grass shack — E.E.Shipton
the camps, with their close-serried shacks of tarpaulin, plywood, oilcloth strips, cardboard — Han Suyin
2. : a room or similar enclosed structure for a particular person or thing
an ammunition shack
a cook's shack
a guard's shack
the operator's shack on a crane
a radio shack
V. intransitive verb
1. : live , dwell
the schoolhouse had been originally put up for the sawmill hands to shack in — Clifton Johnson
2. slang : shack up
VI. transitive verb
Etymology: perhaps alteration of shag (VII)
: chase , retrieve
he'd shack us away a half-dozen times a night — Springfield (Massachusetts) Union
shack a baseball
VII.
dialect
variant of shuck