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shebang

Pronunciation: /ʃɪˈbæŋ(ɡ)/

The English word “shebang” has 5 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A lean-to or temporary shelter.
  2. A place or building; a store, saloon, or brothel.
  3. Any matter of present concern; thing; or business; most commonly in the phrase the whole shebang.
  4. A vehicle.
  5. 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.

Etymology

Unknown. First attested in 1854 in Pennsylvania as "chebang" in the sense of an Oddfellows lodge. Attested from the early 1860s with the meaning "inn" and (slightly later) “temporary shelter”. The earliest attestions (1854-1859) are spelled "chebang" and abstractly seem to indicate an "affair," "matter of concern," or "happening," in keeping with the modern sense, and seem to be from Midwestern…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.