Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a vehicle.

1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 326: I want this shebang [i.e. an omnibus] all day.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 198: In a four-wheeled fever-box you must take your beaver on your knees or get it hopelessly ruffled against the roof of the old shebang.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Mar. in N.Y. Criterion Red Page/2: He clambered over the seats to the front platform. ‘Here, let me run this old shebang,’ said he. ‘I won’t kill nobody.’.

2. (orig. US ) a saloon, a bar.

1859		Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 6/2: Brown, keeper of a shebang, No. — Union street, is deserving of five years [...] for allowing such a drunken set of thieving molls to frequent his ken.
1862		Annual Report US Dept. Interior 567: Along all the roads on the reservation to all the mines, at the crossing of every stream or fresh-water spring, and near the principal Indian villages, an inn or "shebang" is established, ostensibly for the entertainment of travellers, but almost universally used as a den for supplying liquor to Indians.
1879		G.G. Hart E.C.B. Susan Jane 19: Old Jimmy ye know, / That keeps the ‘Shebang’ on the corner below.
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 249: My last requests, the same bein’ addressed to the barkeep, personal, is to set every bottle of bug-juice in the shebang on the bar.
1916		‘Anzac’ On the Anzac Trail 77: Shebangs where they sell you whisky that takes the lining of your throat down with it, and lifts your stomach up to the roof of your skull.
1961		S. Hugill Shanties from the Seven Seas 595: Shebang. Irish name for a shack where illicit whisky (potheen) was distilled; any sort of low ‘dive’.

3. (US) a house, a home, a dwelling place, a shop.

1863		Eye of the Storm 26/27 Nov. 147: The Sanitary Commission camp at a half demolished house known as ‘The Shebang’.
1865		C.C. Nott Sketches in Prison Camps 149: A Captain in my regiment came up, and after the usual greetings invited me into his ‘shebang’.
1877		J.F. Rusling Great West and Pacific Coast 72: His slang – half Mexican, half miner-is everywhere the language of the masses. A ‘square’ meal is his usual phrase for a full or first-rate one. A ‘shebang’ means any structure, from a hotel to a shanty.
1884		Interior Jrnl (Stanford, KY) 30 Dec. 4/1: The three of us sat in a shebang in the prison stockade [...] shebang was the prison word for a dwelling constructed in this way.
1893		H.F. Wood ‘Justice in a Quandary’ in Good Humor 178: Patsy sets this bloke in his shebang a sending along the old stuff.
1895		C.G. Leland ‘Mr. Scroper, Architect’ in Songs of the Sea 189: For last night we had a tempest,-while the mighty thunder rang, / Up there came a real guster, which blew down the whole shebang. / (Shebang’s a word from Hebrew, meanin’ Seven, sayeth Krupp, / And applied to any shanty where they play at seven-up.).
1905		G.W. Peck Peck’s Bad Boy Abroad 20: Why don’t you clean out this shebang; and put in a new stock of goods.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 515: An’ if you charge me board, I’ll charge you interest for the money I’ve stuck into this shebang.
1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 194: Ah couldn’t nevah go back [...] that rube shebang would drive me loony.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 257: I insisted that it be there in the midmost midst of the shebang.
1940		R.L. Bellem ‘Death’s Passport’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 117/2: Dave slammed to a halt in front of Lanya Kensington’s modest shebang.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 177: She’s got people running the shebang [i.e. a business] for her.

4. (US) a thing, an object.

1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 334: We’ve got a shebang [i.e. a lectern] fixed up for you to stand behind.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 368: shebang, n. A contrivance, a thing of any kind.
1950		R. Starnes And When She Was Bad 79: They took that old engine block there and trussed his body to it with wire rope. Then they hauled the whole shebang out here and dumped it.

5. an event.

1902		S.E. White Blazed Trail 126: I took her to a dance one night, / A mossback gave the bidding– / Silver Jack bossed the shebang, / And Big Dan played the fiddle.
1927		K. Nicholson Barker I ii: I won’t have it – not while I’m running this shebang!
1934		R.E. Howard ‘Mountain Man’ Action Stories Mar.–Apr. 🌐 You boys ride into town and tell the folks that the shebangs starts soon.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 54: We ain’t running this shebang.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 395: I don’t like the smell of this whole shebang.
1960		E. De Roo Big Rumble 89: He saw the entire she-bang as one big dance with everyone invited and getting along fine together.
1999		Guardian Guide 19–25 June 31: The whole shebang is being broadcast live.
2000		J. Hawes Dead Long Enough 97: No one wants to blow the whistle on the whole shebang and shaggery.

6. (US Und.) a criminal rendezvous.

1950

Goldin et al. DAUL 190/2: Shebang. 1. A saloon, poolroom, or brothel, as a rendezvous of thieves.

7. (UK/US Und.) a prison cell.

1950

Goldin et al. DAUL 190/2: Shebang. [...] 2. (Contemptuous) A jail, reformatory, or prison; (rare) a cell.

8. see shebeen n.