different between mansion vs shack

English

Alternative forms

• mansioun (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English mansioun, borrowed from Anglo-Norman mansion, mansiun, from Latin mansi? (“dwelling, stopping-place”), from the past participle stem of man?re (“stay”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?mæn(t)??n/

Noun

mansion (plural mansions)

2. A large house or building, usually built for the wealthy.
3. (Britain) A luxurious flat (apartment).
4. (obsolete) A house provided for a clergyman; a manse.
5. (obsolete) A stopping-place during a journey; a stage.
6. (historical) An astrological house; a station of the moon.
   • 1387-1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Franklin's Tale’, Canterbury Tales

     Which book spak muchel of the operaciouns / Touchynge the eighte and twenty mansiouns / That longen to the moone

7. (Chinese astronomy) One of twenty-eight sections of the sky.
8. (chiefly in the plural) An individual habitation or apartment within a large house or group of buildings. (Now chiefly in allusion to John 14:2.)
   • 1611, Bible, Authorized (King James) Version, John XIV.2:

     In my Father's house are many mansions [transl. ????? (monaì)]: if it were not so, I would have told you.

   • 1667, John Denham, On Mr Abraham Cowley, his Death, and Burial amongst the Ancient Poets

     These poets near our princes sleep, / And in one grave their mansion keep.

   • 2003, The Economist, (subtitle), 18 Dec 2003:

     The many mansions in one east London house of God.

9. Any of the branches of the Rastafari movement.

Derived terms

• mansionette
• mansionry
• McMansion

Related terms

Descendants

• Japanese: ????? (manshon) (borrowed)

Translations

Anagrams

• Manions, Minoans, amnions, onanism

Middle English

Noun

mansion

1. Alternative form of mansioun

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æk/
• Rhymes: -æk

Etymology 1

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 back-formation from shackly.

Noun

shack (plural shacks)

1. A crude, roughly built hut or cabin.
2. Any poorly constructed or poorly furnished building.
3. (slang) The room from which a ham radio operator transmits.

Translations

Verb

shack (third-person singular simple present shacks, present participle shacking, simple past and past participle shacked)

1. To live (in or with); to shack up.

Translations

Etymology 2

Obsolete variant of shake. Compare Scots shag (“refuse of barley or oats”).

Noun

shack (countable and uncountable, plural shacks)

1. (obsolete) Grain fallen to the ground and left after harvest.
2. (obsolete) Nuts which have fallen to the ground.
3. (obsolete) Freedom to pasturage in order to feed upon shack.
   • 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke [2]

     […] 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 [3]

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

4. (Britain, US, dialect, obsolete) A shiftless fellow; a low, itinerant beggar; a vagabond; a tramp.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Forby to this entry?)

   • 1868, Henry Ward Beecher, Norwood, or Village Life in New England

     All the poor old shacks about the town found a friend in Deacon Marble.

5. (fishing) Bait that can be picked up at sea.

Derived terms

• common of shack

Verb

shack (third-person singular simple present shacks, present participle shacking, simple past and past participle shacked)

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

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Grose to this entry?)

   • 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke [4]

     […] 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.

3. (Britain, dialect) To wander as a vagabond or tramp.
4. (US, intransitive) To hibernate; to go into winter quarters.

References

Anagrams

• hacks, schak