shanty [E19th] The sea shanty, the song to which sailors hauled ropes, probably comes from French chantez!, an order to ‘sing!’ It is recorded from the mid 19th century. A slightly earlier shanty appeared in North America for a small, crudely built shack and may come from Canadian French chantier ‘lumberjack’s cabin, logging camp’, a specialized used of the word which usually means ‘building site’ in France. This shanty gave the world the shanty town first recorded in the US in 1876.