DCHP-1 Online

shanty ((n.)) [< Cdn F chantier, q.v.]

• 1a n. Hist. a crude hut used as a dwelling by lumbermen in the bush.

  See also: chantie (def. 2)  log shanty (def. 1)  

  • Although the most probable source of shanty is Cdn F chantier, especially in lumbering contexts, the possibility remains that a similar word, derived from Irish Gaelic sean tig hut, may have been introduced by Irish immigrants into Upper Canada, where the term seems first to have enjoyed currency; it may well be, therefore, that two different words of similar form contributed to the generalization of this term and its derivatives in Canada during the nineteenth century. Cp. note at shebang.

  • 1822  (1932)  We arrived . . . and finding a quantity of timber collected on the ice, concluded that the shanty must be close at hand.
  • 1826  Like kings they can live in a shantie/ And sleep upon green hemlock boughs.
  • 1849  We took up our position for the night in a deserted lumberer's shanty of logs, a considerable part of the roof of this small square hut being wanting, to favour the passage of the smoke.
  • 1923  (1929)  The afternoon began to wear away, and long after the time when they should have started for the shanty, Monique was staring at the pine-trees.
  • 1963  In Lower Canada . . . scores hid out in the sugaring huts and loggers' shanties in the bush.

• 1b n. Hist. a specially designed log bunkhouse used by a gang of loggers. [See picture.]

  See also: camboose (def. 3)  camp (def. 1c)  log shanty (def. 2)  lumber shanty (def. 1)  

  • 1829  As these people live in huts in the woods . . . which huts are houses only for a season, they are called shanties, and hence, shantymen. . . .
  • 1883  Monahan's shanty . . . is a capital specimen . . . of backwoods architecture.
  • 1961  This [museum] . . . includes a full-size replica of a logging shanty or camboose camp. . . .

• 1c n. Hist. a boarding-house or bunkhouse erected at a work camp for the accommodation of miners, loggers, etc.

  See also: sleeping camp  

  • 1861  (1965)  There are now upwards of 600 persons at work at the gold fields. A number of "shanties" have been erected for the accomodation of the "diggers". . . .
  • 1905  The camp was situated in the woods, and consisted of board shanties sufficient to accomodate 500 people.
  • 1945  Straight ahead was "the shanty," where the Indians lived. . . .

• 2a n. Hist. a camp at which logging (def. 2) is carried on.

  See also: camboose camp (def. 2)  chantier (def. 2)  logging (def. 2)  logging camp  lumber shanty (def. 2)  

  • 1829  In these shanties they pass the time pretty well, considering them to be made up of Highlandmen, Irishmen, and Yankees.
  • 1834  Last winter in a "shanty" at Lassomption a few American sleighs (dragged by one horse) tracked a road for themselves, which was free from Cahots. . . .
  • 1911  At dinner time . . . most o' the men's working close to the shanty, so they come in for dinner.
  • 1960  In the early period of the trade, the shanty was an unruly haven of the "rugged individual."

• 2b n. Hist. See quote.

  • 1829  . . . but there is something more attached to the name shanty than mere hut, in the lumberman's dictionary. Thus, so many men, oxen, so much pork, flour, &c. compose a shanty.

• 2c n. Hist. the gang of loggers who work together and live in the same dwelling.

  • 1883  So the very next day the two confederates who were causing all the trouble in the other shanty, were ordered . . . to go to work in Larry's shanty, and their place was supplied by two of his best and most peaceful men.
  • 1902  (1957)  Every man in the shanty, cook included, got on the piece [a monster mast] and danced . . . to the music of the fiddle for the two miles' distance between the shanty and the landing place at the forks of the Ouse.

• 2d n. Hist. go to shanty, enter the bush in winter to work as a logger in the shanties (def. 2a).

  See also: shanty ((n.)) (def. 2a)  

  • 1870  The stalwart lumbermen "go to shanty" without the slightest dread of cold. . . .
  • 1947  Paddy Farrell of Pembroke, who for many years was a "walking boss" for camps operated by the Gillies Company, recalls the first time he ever "went to shanty."
  • 1964  What it was that took thousands of men up the Opeongo Line, can only be guessed or dimly felt by those of us who never "went to shanty."

• 2e n. Hist. put in shanty, establish a logging camp.

  • 1945  In the busy years, the firm often "put in shanty" in the Rideau Lakes area . . . to cut floats and traverses. . . .

• 3a n. Hist. a crude one-room dwelling of logs patterned after the shanty (def. la) and much used by the pioneers, usually to serve as a temporary dwelling until a more substantial house could be built.

  See also: shanty ((n.)) (def. 1a)  

  • 1833  (1926)  I incline myself to the regular routine; a wigwam the first week; a shanty till the loghouse is up; and the frame, brick or stone house half a dozen years hence, when I have a good clearing and can see which will be the best situation.
  • 1840  (1842)  The shanty is a sort of primitive hut in Canadian architecture, and is nothing more than a shed built of logs, the chinks between the round edges of the timbers being filled with mud, moss, and bits of wood. . . .
  • 1961  A shanty [as opposed to a cabin or a house] had just two openings, one for a door and one in the roof to permit the smoke to escape.

• 3b n. a rude dwelling, especially one of wood, usually in a rundown condition.

  See also: shack ((n.))  

  • 1840  (1842)  Behind the town . . . is a wide space which I call the "squatters' ground," it being entirely covered with shanties, in which the poor immigrants, commuted pensioners, and the like, have located themselves and families.
  • 1852  Our readers, who are acquainted with Toronto, will remember the corner of Bay and King Streets, which used to be disfigured by some wooden shanties of two stories.
  • 1880  The telegraph office was a very rude shanty, but to one who had for months been cut off from tidings of friends and of the world it seemed like a temple of science.
  • 1965  [They] saw a bearded fellow hoeing a garden beside a shanty below.