shotgun shack

Narrow straight house

A shotgun shack is a narrow rectangular house, typically one room wide, where all rooms are arranged in a single line front to back.

The name supposedly comes from the idea that a shotgun blast fired through the front door would pass straight through and out the back.

Common in the American South, especially in Black communities, these modest dwellings became associated with poverty and working-class life: He grew up in a shotgun shack in New Orleans.

The Talking Heads song "Life During Wartime" opens with the image.

architecture

narrow

Of small width

rectangularFour right angles
linearArranged in straight succession
single-storyHaving one floor

gable roof · clapboard · wooden · front porch · stoop · transom · shotgun house · camelback · vernacular · folk

dwelling

home

One's personal residence

houseResidential building
residencePlace one inhabits
cottageSmall rural home

cabin · bungalow · abode · domicile · shelter · quarters · homestead · family home · starter home · fixer-upper

compact

cramped

Uncomfortably lacking space

narrowOf small width
smallLimited in size
confinedKept within bounds

tight · cozy · snug · efficient · close-quarters · space-saving · minimal · intimate · bijou · pocket-sized

poverty

working-class

Manual laborers as group

low-incomeEarning below average wages
impoverishedExtremely lacking in money
humbleUnassuming about oneself

modest · subsistence · hardship · slum · disadvantaged · tenant · sharecropper · rental · affordable · dilapidated

southern

New Orleans

Louisiana's largest city

LouisianaGulf Coast pelican state
Mississippi DeltaRiver's fan-shaped lowland
bayouMarshy, slow-moving waterway

Creole · Cajun · Gulf Coast · Memphis · blues · Ninth Ward · plantation · freedmen · post-Civil War · African American

shotgun shack

narrow

home

cramped

working-class

New Orleans

shotgun shack

Opposites

Categories

Family