shebeen
Americannoun
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a tavern or house where liquor is sold illegally.
noun
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a place where alcoholic drink is sold illegally
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(in Ireland) alcohol, esp home-distilled whiskey, sold without a licence
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(in South Africa) a place where Black African men engage in social drinking
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(in the US and Ireland) weak beer
Etymology
Origin of shebeen
1780–90; < Irish síbín illicit whiskey, place where such whiskey is sold (ellipsis from teach síbín shebeen house), originally, a unit of measure < English chopin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The stage had been converted into something like a shebeen: a pub, an African juke joint, with plastic crates for seats and lanterns for lighting.
From New York Times • Sep. 18, 2022
Come January, Broadway will lose a cozy shebeen, a place for song, story, chat and some pretty pricey ales.
From New York Times • Dec. 25, 2014
The latter was a celebration of a famous Orcadian character, Willie Farquhar, who kept a shebeen on the island from the war years through to the 1960s, when the authorities closed him down.
From The Guardian • Jun. 25, 2010
Meier kept a shebeen in Leningrad until political misfortune befell his son.
From Time Magazine Archive
Much earlier that day, before Granny discovered the fly in her caldo verde, Tendai was slaving away in the She Elephant’s shebeen.
From "The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm" by Nancy Farmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.