Shed

Shed. (1) A small hut, shelter or outhouse, especially one with a "shed roof" or "lean-to," a roof with only one set of rafters, falling from a higher to a lower wall, like an aisle roof. "Shed" is also the term applied to a large roofed shelter open at the sides for the storage of goods, rolling-stock, locomotives, &c., on a railway or dock-wharf. According to Skeat, the word is a Kentish form of "shade," "shadow," in O. Eng._scced, sceadu, cf. Ger. Schatten; the ultimate origin is the root ska-, to cover, seen in Gr. oKea, shadow, vKivrl, tent, shelter, stage, whence Eng. "scene"; the Eng. "sky" comes from a closely allied root sku, also to cover, cf. Lat. obscurus. (2) To spill, to scatter, to cast off; originally the word seems to have meant to part, to divide, a use only surviving in "watershed." The 0. Eng. verb was sceddan, in Mid. Eng. shoden, to divide, separate. "Shed" in the sense of to spill has, however, by some etymologists been taken to be a separate word from that meaning to part; it would in that case appear to be connected with O. Fris. schedda, to shake, the root of which is found in "shudder."