How to use shanty in a sentence

20 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Shanty means a roughly-built hut or cabin. Example: “A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way.”

Examples of shanty by meaning

nounA roughly-built hut or cabin.

A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused or abandoned.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 428
Large shanties at staging grounds in the woods included bunkhouses holding one to three dozen men, so not all shanties were small.2000, Craig A. Gilborn, Adirondack Camps: Homes Away from Home, 1850-1950, page 51

nounA rudimentary or improvised dwelling, especially one not legally owned.

Shanties along canal banks and road reserves have emerged since independence in 1948 onwards, and consist of unauthorized and improvised shelter without legal rights of occupancy of the land and structures.2003, United Nations Human Settlements Programme, The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, page 208
A few governments recognise the shanties as a form of self-help housing that places very little burden upon government funds.2005, Stephen Codrington, Planet Geography, page 481
In the hard times of the 1930s, shanty boats along the Ohio River′s banks were home to many families, who felt fortunate to have a roof over their heads even if it was not on dry land.2009, James E. Casto, The Great Ohio River Flood of 1937, page 83

nounA rhythmic work song, traditionally sung by sailors or stevedores, functioning to set the pace for hauling, turning a...

A Scot called Macmillan, a man holding a master's square-rig ticket, gave me a portion of a shanty related in tune to the foregoing, and also to the British Rolling Home.1979, Stan Hugill, Shanties from the Seven Seas: Shipboard Work-songs and Songs Used as Work-songs from the Great Days of Sail, page 192
Today, shanties are a special feature of the folk music movement.1997, Jan Ling, A History of European Folk Music, page 41

More sentences with shanty

“Some had called them a 'swampbilly' because they lived in shanty houseboats,” he said.2018, Dr. Daniene Marciano, Pillars of a Legacy: An Italian Experience, Dog Ear Publishing, →ISBN, page 247. From the entry swampbilly
The Jenukurubas of Hunsur Taluka, Mysore District Karnataka lived in ransackle shanties.2002, India. Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Annual Report, page 20. From the entry ransackle
Drivelling back to the shanty at midday presented him with a distracting gamble over lunch.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 122. From the entry drivel
Bonzer shanty like this to loaf in; what more does a man want?"1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 75. From the entry sunbaking
Afore we got to the shanty Colonel Applegate stuck his head out of the door.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 175. From the entry head
He captured the contrast between the tanners’ workshops and shanties flanking the Dâmbovița and the imposing public buildings recently erected nearby.2013, Adrian-Silvan Ionescu, “Romanian Architecture and Cityscape: The Legacy of Nineteenth-Century Photographers”, in Micheline Nilsen…. From the entry Dâmbovița
The navvies of the Midland Railway toiled for years to build it, enduring grim conditions in shanty towns that were built miles from civilisation.2020 May 20, Philip Haigh, “Ribblehead: at the heart of the S&C's survival and its revival”, in Rail, page 26. From the entry navvy
Here, we compare waulking songs and shanties to see how they operated in bringing women and men, respectively, into a sense of close alignment.2013, Marek Korczynski, Michael Pickering, Emma Robertson, Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain, Cambridge University Press, page 97. From the entry waulk
Back at the shanty, Bradly's compunction for bellowing at Podson was a good deal relieved by Podson's gruntulous annoyance at being bellowed at.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 93. From the entry gruntulous
Next he put the mackerel in a fry-pan, and the shanty began to smell like a Banks boat just in from a v'yage.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC. From the entry smell
Shanty towns were prone to fire and both Kowloon Tsai and Tai Hang Tung eventually burned to the ground, their residents given shelter in resettlement estates.2018 November 5, Christopher DeWolf, “Kowloon Tong history: Hong Kong’s original garden city and its unusual path”, in South China Morning…. From the entry Kowloon Tsai
To wash this down in the enginemen's shanty, we had a nice white Bordeaux, followed by the remains of the Rosé and finishing up with excellent Beaujolais.1961 March, ""Balmore"", “Driving and firing modern French steam locomotives”, in Trains Illustrated, page 151. From the entry wash down

Meaning of shanty

noun A roughly-built hut or cabin.
noun A rudimentary or improvised dwelling, especially one not legally owned.
noun An unlicensed pub.

Full definition of shanty

Questions about shanty in a sentence

How do you use shanty in a sentence?: Shanty is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way.”
What is a short sentence with shanty?: “Today, shanties are a special feature of the folk music movement.”
What does shanty mean?: Shanty means a roughly-built hut or cabin.

Adapted from Wiktionary: shanty (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use shanty in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/shanty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.