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SHED.. (I) 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 0. Eng. steed, sceadu,
cf. Ger. Schatten; the ultimate origin is the root ska-, to cover, seen in Gr. 1K16, shadow, UK1iv'i, 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. shceden, 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 0. Fris. schedda, to shake, the root of which is found in " shudder."