ABEEHNS (2)

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

ABEEHNS (2)

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

SHEBEAN (n. pl. -S)

• Definition: an unlicensed or illegally operated drinking establishment: a speakeasy; sometimes, a drinking-party in general

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: S
• Anagrams: BANSHEE (a female spirit – see below)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: SHEBEEN
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

The etymology of SHEBEAN/SHEBEEN is a little uncertain, but it probably derives from the Irish Gaelic sibin ("bad ale") or the Irish seapa ("shop").  The English word SHEBANG, meaning "a situation or matter" (frequently seen in the phrase "the whole shebang"), may derive from a similar source.

The South African Government, after years of battling to control illicit drinking dens, known as shebeens, in black townships, has conceded defeat and legalized them.
– Article in The Times (of London), May 1980

I've... seen him standing up there on one of those outcrops overlooking the company's buildings as if he'd like to call down fire from heaven on the whole shebang.
– Vance Palmer, Golconda (1948)

By a strange coincidence, the anagram BANSHEE also derives from Irish, namely the Old Irish ben side ("woman of the fairies").  A banshee (also spelled BANSHIE) is a female spirit that "warns a family of the approaching death of a member by her appearance or especially by wailing unseen under the windows of the house a night or two before the time of the death she foretells" (W3).  The phrase "scream like a banshee" (or "wail like a banshee" or similar) comes from this legend.