Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also shack out) to idle, to loaf.

1865		Good Words Feb. 125: What makes the work come so heavy at the end of the week, is, that the men are shacking at the beginning [F&H].
1896		E.P. Oppenheim False Evidence xxvi n.p.: What would you have me do? Shack about with my hands in my pockets all day? [F&H].
1912		Wash. Herald (DC) 17 Mar. 2/2: ‘Come on, fellows, brace up [...] remember now, no “shacking”’.
1997–2002		Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 shack out v. intr. To rest and relax; to ‘hang one’s hat.’.

2. (also shuck out, shack up) to live alone, to live as a bachelor or single woman.

1895		DN I 393: Shack. (v.) to live in a shack or keep a bachelor’s hall in general. ‘They sent away their wives and shacked for a time.’.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 94: You ain’t de Everglades Cypress Lumber Comp’ny sho nuff. Youse just shacking in one of their shanties.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 203: He asked me to [...] stay with him in his new three-dollar room, but I told him ‘no,’ that I wanted to shuck out on my own.
1953		F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 287: Yuh didn’t tell ’em I’m shackin’ on the roof?
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 101: [He] shacked up in a stark little basement flat.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 13: You shacked here now Noreen?
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 504: Donkey Dom’s shacked at the Cavern.

3. (also shack around, shack out) to have sexual intercourse; also as n.; also transitive use constr. with with.

1944–51		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 49: There was a young blade from South Greece / Whose bush did so greatly increase / That before he could shack / He must hunt needle in stack.
1947		L. Walker Show Me the Way 191: She wanted me to shack with her tonight.
1949		I. Shulman Cry Tough! 172: The other women he shacked around with were dampers for his heat.
1953		F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 184: You shackin’ with Clara?
1960		G. Swarthout Where the Boys Are 179: Dilworth [...] had taken her to a motel for some shack and got her drunk; enter the other two, who tried to make a kind of obscene round-robin out of it.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 134: Miss Roach certainly looked as if she’d been shacking all night with me.
1963		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 345: See that girl over there in slacks. / She shacks.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 191: Shack out Have sexual intercourse.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 1016: Who could Harold be shackin with?
1983		(con. 1950s) D. Nobbs Second from Last in the Sack Race 217: Far too many boys. Have to shack a few, I think.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 13: They met, they sizzled, they shacked [...] Jean #2 got pregnant.

4. to live with a partner; usu. transitive use constr. with with.

1949		(con. 1943–5) A. Murphy To Hell and Back (1950) 136: ‘Who the hell is she?’ ‘Some broad I used to shack with in Boston.’.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 109: It ain’t because you’re shacking — living with Scar got nothing to do with it.
1957		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 27 Apr. 13: ‘Penguin’ marriages of course have been the way the ball bounces throughout U.S. history.
1963		J. Blake letter 2 Aug. in Joint (1972) 213: I says, you didn’t tell me you were shacking with a wily Japanese after Pearl Harbor and all.
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 195: From the looks of things, we’ll probably be shacking before the end of the month is out.
1984		C. White Life and Times of Little Richard 195: Some of you that has been shackin’, you can just go packin’.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 370: Where you been, man, shackin’ with some babe?
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 242: ‘Natalie Wood?’ ‘Lez. Currently shacked with a WAC major named Biff.’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 95: ‘Joi’s shacking with Stece Cochran’.

5. in weak use of sense 4, to become involved with, e.g. an idea.

2010

K. Richards Life 345: I thought I was shacking up with this really weird, unknown sect.

6. (US Und.) to rob a house or apartment when the owner is having dinner in another room; thus shacker, a ‘dinner burglar’; shacking touch, the loot gained from such a burglary or the burglary itself.

1950

Goldin et al. DAUL 189/2: Shack, v. To operate as a dinner burglar. [...] Shacker. A burglar who robs the homes of the well-to-do during dinner hours. [...] Shacking touch. A house burglary during dinner hours; the loot taken in such a robbery.

7. to stay the night at someone’s house, whether sexually or not; occas. transitive use constr. with with.

1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 200: I’m going to shack with Dot and Jim.
1969		Current Sl. IV:1 14: Shack, v. To stay out all night with a boy or girl.
1989		J. Doyle College Sl. Dict. 🌐 shack to stay at the apartment/dorm/frat/sorority of your significant or not so significant other overnight.
1996		Eble Campus Sl. Sept.
2001		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 9: SHACK – stay at someone of the opposite sex’s house; to sleep somewhere other than home.