shebang
shebang Lexical Profile
shebang Game Scores & Validity
• noun
The entirety of a matter, affair, organization, or contrivance (used almost exclusively in the informal phrase 'the whole shebang').
"The catering company managed the whole shebang, from designing the menu to cleaning up after the reception."
In Unix-like operating systems, the character sequence '#!' placed at the very beginning of a script to specify which interpreter program should execute it.
"If you forget to include the shebang on the first line of your shell script, the system may not know to run it with Bash."
American A crude hut, shanty, shelter, or makeshift dwelling (now chiefly historical).
"During the winter campaign, the soldiers built a rough wooden shebang to keep out the freezing rain."
Word Nuance & Usage
In everyday conversation, 'shebang' is almost exclusively restricted to the fixed informal idiom 'the whole shebang', meaning everything included in a particular situation or enterprise.
• Rhymes for shebang
Word Origin & Etymology
First recorded in American English during the US Civil War era to denote a crude hut, tent, or wagon, possibly derived from the Irish 'shebeen' (an unlicensed tavern) or the French 'char-à-bancs' (a bench-lined carriage). In computing, the sense for '#!' arose in Unix jargon as an elision of 'sharp-bang'.