Author: Manuel F. Simoes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A shack is a type of small, often primitive shelter or dwelling. The word may derive from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word xahcalli [ʃaʔ’kalːi] or “adobe house” by way of Mexican Spanish xacal/jacal, which has the same meaning as “shack”.^[1] It was a common usage among people of Mexican ancestry throughout the U.S. southwest and was picked up by speakers of American English.

An alternative etymology is that shack derives from teach, pronounced chaċ, meaning “house” in Irish Gaelic, which was absorbed into American English from the 1880s onwards. Similarly shanty may have derived from the Gaelic seantigh, prounced shan-tí, meaning “old house”, at a time when Irish migrants lived in New York’s tenements.^[2]

It is possible that up to a billion people worldwide live in shacks.^[3] Fire is a significant hazard in tight-knit shack settlements.^[4] Shack settlements are also sometimes known as slums or shanty towns.