Shebang Definition

shə-băng
noun
A shack or hut.
Webster's New World
An affair, business, contrivance, thing, etc.
Webster's New World

(archaic) A lean-to or temporary shelter.

Wiktionary

(computing) The character string "#!" used at the beginning of a computer file to indicate which interpreter can process the commands in the file, chiefly used in Unix and related operating systems.

Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Shebang

Noun

Singular:
shebang
Plural:
shebangs

Origin of Shebang

  • The usage as “temporary shelter" perhaps from shebeen (“cabin where unlicensed liquor is sold and drunk"), pre-1800, chiefly in Ireland and Scotland, from Irish seibin (“small mug"), diminutive of seibe (“mug, bottle, liquid measure")

    From Wiktionary

  • First seen in 1862 meaning a “temporary shelter". For instance in the US Civil War (1860-65), the small self-constructed shelters made by Union soldiers in the Confederate Prisoner-of-War camp at Andersonsville, south of Atlanta, Georgia, were known as "Shebangs".

    From Wiktionary

  • Modern sense "the whole shebang", origin unknown but meaning "all of the parts" of what is being referred to. Take our Word]</ref>

    From Wiktionary

  • hash +"Ž bang or sharp +"Ž bang, after Etymology 1.

    From Wiktionary

  • Origin unknown

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

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