shanty

Word family

Related topics: Music

shan·ty /ˈʃænti/ noun (plural shanties) [countableC]

1 TBBa small, roughly built hut made from thin sheets of wood, tin, plastic etc that very poor people live in 〔穷人居住的〕简陋小木屋，铁皮[塑料板]棚屋

Workers were living in tents and shanties.

工人们住在帐篷和棚屋里。

2. (also sea shanty)APM a song sung by sailors in the past, as they did their work 〔昔日水手劳动时唱的〕号子，船夫号子，船歌

Examples from the Corpus

shanty• Adelaida Parra coordinates seven literacy groups each week spending long hours travelling by bus between the distant shanty towns.• This was answered inpart by a number of small-scale entrepreneurs operating in the shanty towns.• The inhabitants of the shanty towns have frequently achieved stability and social organisation through the establishment of personal networks and voluntary associations.• On the far side of the pond the shanties started, the lowest-lying cluster surrounded by water, flooded.• The gang warfare ripping through the shanties is fuelled by what has replaced politics after Aristide: prostitution, drugs and ritual.• Migrant families have brought the tradition with them to the urban shanty towns.• He had visited shanty settlements known as fa las owing to their resemblance, at a distance, to honeycombs.

Origin shanty

1. (1800-1900) Canadian French chantier, from French, “wooden support”, from Latin cantherius “trellis”

2. (1800-1900) chantey

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus