Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. any place where tramps congregate.

1891		Topeka Dly Capital (KS) 17 Dec. 4/3: We Have a Tramp ‘Shack’ [...] An Organized Den of Tramps [...] outside the city limits. This rendezvous is situated about half a mile above the ‘Y’ on the Rock Island road.
1909		H. Green Mr. Jackson 60: I met you in the old Lick House – ’member that shack?
1911		Detroit Free Press (MI) 19 Mar. 70/6: ‘That tramp has kidnaped Jimmy Clark!’ muttered carl [...] They soon reached the tramp’s shack and rescued him.
1923		‘Gila Monster Route’ in N. Anderson Hobo 194: No chance for a bo to feed his face; / Not even a shack to beg for a lump. / Nor a hen house there to frisk for a gump.
1928		Star Gaz. (Elmira, NY) 2 Mar. 13/3: [headline] Body Found in Tramp Shack; Thought Canned Heat Victim.
1936		Santa Ana Register (CA) 19 Sept. n.p.: Exhaustive combing of all squalid tramp jungles and burning of tramp shacks [...] have brought police to the same stone wall.
1958		Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS) 19 Oct. 11/1: [cartoon cap.] Phew! Th’ City dump’s over that way [...] Oh-oh! A shack! Tramps?
1964		Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS) 27 Mar. 23/1: [cartoon cap.] ‘That tramp and his shack are a blot on the city image!’.

2. (US) one’s home, one’s house.

1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 249: He put up a Shack that reminded one of the State Capitol at Springfield.
1905		‘Hugh McHugh’ You Can Search Me 91: Mr. Jefferson [...] insisted that we should hit the suburban trail and locate your shack.
1914		H. Hershfield Abie the Agent 14 Dec. [synd. cartoon strip] As long as Skinny’s old man won’t let him talk to Van no more I guess I’ll cop him off myself [...] I’ll go up to his shack and call on him.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 120: I want you to look over some of those shacks.
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 93: He has a shack on the mesa by Baldwin Hills.
1941		K. Amis letter 13 Jan. in Leader (2000) 4: I’ve scoured the shack for things for the LC rooms & can’t find anything suitable.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 16: Curt Westerheym [...] gave her the little eighteen-room shack for a wedding present, you may remember.
a.1963		‘The Fall’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 84: Then I blew my shack, my Cadillac, / My rug up off the floor.
1972		D. Claerbaut Black Jargon in White Amer. 78: shack n. a home; apartment; place of residence.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 73: I got off the freeway at Lincoln and headed for the arson shack.
1999		Dr Dre ‘Still D.R.E.’ 🎵 Whether you’re cooling on a corner with your fly bitch / Laid back in the shack, play this track.

3. see shack job under shack v.

4. see shack-up n. (1)