noun
Street Slang
shotgun house
· noun · nola
Long narrow NOLA house with rooms in a straight line front to back.
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Definitions
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A one-room-wide house where every room opens directly into the next with no hallway, front door to back door in a straight shot. The folk etymology: you could fire a shotgun through the front door and the pellets would sail clean out the back. Defines whole neighbourhoods of New Orleans — the Bywater, Marigny, Tremé, Central City.
“He grew up in a double shotgun on Burgundy with his auntie on the other side.”
by community
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shotgun house In A Sentence
He grew up in a double shotgun on Burgundy with his auntie on the other side.
Origin & Usage
Likely brought to New Orleans via free Haitian immigrants after the 1791 revolution; the form echoes West African and Caribbean housing styles. Dominant in NOLA from the 1860s through the 1920s.
Variants
shotgun
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