subs. (common).—1. A rough and tumble hut; 2. (Australian and showmen’s) a public-house; (3) a brothel (sailors’); and (4) a quart; whence (5) beer money. Also as verb. = (1) to dwell in a hut, and (2) to take shelter.
1848. COOPER, The Oak-Openings, ii. This was the second season that le Bourdon had occupied ‘Castle Meal,’ as he himself called the SHANTY.
1857. HAMMOND, Wild Northern Scenes, 197. Mark Shuff and a friend … SHANTIED on the outlet, just at the foot of [Tupper’s Lake]. Ibid., 212. We SHANTIED on the Ohio.
c. 1859. New York Courier [BARTLETT]. The sportsmen … brace themselves to meet the rude exigencies of a tramp and SHANTEEING OUT for a few days.
1861. H. KINGSLEY, Ravenshoe, liv. There was weeping in the reed-thatched hovels of the Don, and in the mud-built SHANTIES of the Dnieper.
1882. E. V. SMALLEY, The New North-West, in The Century Magazine, Aug., 508. These droll and dirty congeries of SHANTIES and ‘shacks.’
1886–96. MARSHALL, ‘He Slumbered’ [‘Pomes,’ 118]. She scooted from the SHANTY.
1887. All the Year Round, 30 July, 67. ‘Inns’ do not exist in Australia, every house of refreshment is a ‘hotel.’ It may be only a wooden SHANTY up country.
1889. C. HADDON CHAMBERS, In Australian Wilds, 53. I knew that there was no public house or SHANTY within twelve miles.
1890. DILKE, Problems of Greater Britain, iii. 1. Kimberley is still a huge aggregation of SHANTIES traversed by tramways and lit by electric light.
1892. HUME NISBET, The Bushranger’s Sweetheart, 34. “Yes; and did you run that SHANTY long, Stringy?” “For three months and more, and did a roaring trade besides.”
1893. MILLIKEN, ’Arry Ballads, 3, ‘On the ’Oliday Season.’ No pub but a sand-parlour’d SHANTY devoted to sing-song and swipes.
1893. P. H. EMERSON, Signor Lippo, v. Any SHANTY in your sky-rocket? Ibid., xiv. Then we went out for a SHANTY, and when we came back Blower and Bottlenose were clearing up.
2. See CHANTEY.
