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Slum vs Shack - What's the difference?

slum | shack |

As nouns the difference between slum and shack

is that slum is a dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty while shack is a crude, roughly built hut or cabin.

As verbs the difference between slum and shack

is that slum is to visit a neighborhood of a status below one's own while shack is to live in or with; to shack up.

slum

English

(wikipedia slum)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A dilapidated neighborhood where many people live in a state of poverty.
    • Go to the half built-upon slums behind Battlebridge [...] you will find groups of boys [...] squatting in the mud, among the rubbish, the broken bricks, the dust-heaps, and the fragments of timber [...].
  • :*Charles Dickens, Gambling .

    • Derived terms

    * slumdog * slumdom

    Related terms

    * ghetto * Hell's Kitchen * shantytown

    Verb

    (slumm)
  • To visit a neighborhood of a status below one's own.
  • To associate with people or engage in activities with a status below one's own.

    • Anagrams

    *

    shack

    English

    (wikipedia shack)

    Etymology 1

    Some authorities derive this word from (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A crude, roughly built hut or cabin.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1913, author=
    • , title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad , chapter=6 citation , passage=The men resided in a huge bunk house, which consisted of one room only, with a shack outside where the cooking was done. In the large room were a dozen bunks?; half of them in a very dishevelled state, […]}}
  • Any unpleasant, poorly constructed or poorly furnished building.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To live in or with; to shack up.

    • Etymology 2

    Obsolete variant of shake. Compare (etyl) .

    Noun

    (-)
  • (obsolete) Grain fallen to the ground and left after harvest.
  • (obsolete) Nuts which have fallen to the ground.
  • (obsolete) Freedom to pasturage in order to feed upon shack .
  • * 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=OCLC11859773&id=rI0iE-yqyAMC&q=%22right+to+shack%22&prev=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 .
  • (UK, US, dialect, obsolete) A shiftless fellow; a low, itinerant beggar; a vagabond; a tramp.
    • (Forby)
  • * Henry Ward Beecher
    • All the poor old shacks about the town found a friend in Deacon Marble.
    Derived terms
    * common of shack

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To shed or fall, as corn or grain at harvest.
  • (obsolete) To feed in stubble, or upon waste.
    • (Grose)
  • * 1918, Christobel Mary Hoare Hood, The History of an East Anglian Soke [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=OCLC11859773&id=rI0iE-yqyAMC&q=%22right+to+shack%22&prev=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.
  • (UK, dialect) To wander as a vagabond or tramp.

    • Anagrams

    *

    References