CABIN  , a small, roughly built hut or shelter; the

term is particularly applied to the thatched mud cottages of the negro slaves of the southern states of the Unites States of America, or of the poverty-stricken peasantry of Ireland or the crofter districts of Scotland . In a special sense it is used of the small rooms or compartments on board a vessel used for sleeping, eating or other accommodation . The word in its earlier English forms was cabane or caban, and thus seems to be an adaptation of the French cabane; the French have taken cabine, for the room on board a ship, from the English . In French and other Romanic languages, in which the word occurs, e.g . Spanish cabana, Portuguese cabana, the origin is usually found in the Medieval Latin capanna . Isidore of Seville (Origines, lib. xiv . 12) says:—Tugurium (hut) parva casula est, quam faciunt sibi custodes vinearum, ad tegimen seu quasi tegurium . Hoc rustici Capannam vocant, quod unum tantum capiat (see Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v . Capanna) . Others derive from Greek K&irf, crib, manger . Skeat considers the English word was taken from the Welsh caban, rather than from the French, and that the original source for all the forms was Celtic .