DCHP-1 Online

shebang [perhaps < Cdn F cabane < F "hut"] Slang

• 1 n. a low drinking establishment frequented by the loggers and rivermen of Lower and Upper Canada.

  See also: bush tavern  caboose (def. 6b)  shanty ((n.)) (see note)  

  • Although this term is usually assumed to derive from Cdn F cabane, it seems possible, in view of the Canadian sense, that Irish shebeen of similar meaning was the source, especially since Irishmen were prominent among the shantymen with whom the term is associated. Cp. note at shanty.

  • 1901  Yet there were people who called the tavern a "shebang"--slander as it was against Suzon Charlemagne, which every river-driver and woodsman and habitant who frequented the place would have resented with violence.
  • 1907  (1908)  There was a sort of sheebang--you couldn't call it a hotel if you had any regard for the truth--on the outskirts of Walsh for the accommodation of wayfarers without a camp-outfit. . . .
  • 1963  Less picturesque were the shebangs dotted along the rivers, where squaws and whiskey awaited the shanty boys and their winter pay.

• 2 † n. the whole shebang, the entire lot; everything; all the things involved.

  • Here, too, the Newfoundland context of the early quote suggests possible Irish influence.

  • 1885  (1960)  . . . We met a heavy sou'west gale that washed away our boat,/It washed away our quarter deck, our stanchions just as well,/And so we set the whole "she-bang" a-floating in the gale.
  • 1920  It would . . . be a God-send . . . to have somebody . . . keep the cobwebs out of the corners and the mildew off his books and save the whole disintegrating shebang from the general rack and ruin which usually overtakes empty mansions. . . .
  • 1959  [He] became managing director of the whole shebang in six years. . . .