shebeen

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (2)  · 
“
And in Apartheid-era South Africa, a shebeen was a mostly illegally operated pub for the disenfranchised natives who were unwelcome in English or Boer drinking establishments.

View all »
Definitions (4)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun An unlicensed drinking establishment, especially in Ireland, Scotland, and South Africa.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • If a man fits up his house as a shebeen, and has conducted it tolerably, he ought to receive just compensation when his licence is cancelled owing to there being too many in a district. —  The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent
  • And in Apartheid-era South Africa, a shebeen was a mostly illegally operated pub for the disenfranchised natives who were unwelcome in English or Boer drinking establishments. —  Readthehook.com - Current Articles
  • The show opens with a young man, Christy Mahon, seeking refuge in a small, village shebeen, an illegally operated pub. —  The Milford Daily News Homepage RSS
  • One of the most popular spots is Wandie's Place, a former "shebeen," or neighborhood bar, that's been converted into a restaurant and, on the second floor, a seven-room guesthouse. —  The Bellingham Herald: Sports News
  • They scraped the jolly-boat's planking, and pitched her inside and out; after which they collected all the stray blocks of basalt they could find and built a "shebeen," as Mr McCarthy called it, to contain her, and then housed it and her over with all the spare planks they could get hold of--marching miles along the black sandy beach for the purpose of seeing what stray timber might be stranded. —  The Wreck of the Nancy Bell Cast Away on Kerguelen Land
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 33 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Irish Gaelic séibín, measure of grain, grain tax, bad ale, diminutive of séibe, mug, bottle.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Of Irish origin.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ʃɛˈbin/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

We are still working on calculating this word's frequency.

Recently looked up

asperity · e · sack · supernatural · overdrawn

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich