Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. So poorly constructed or kept up that disintegration is likely; rickety: a ramshackle cabin in the woods.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Loose-jointed; ill-made; out of gear or repair; crazy; tumble-down; unregulated; chaotic.
- n. A thoughtless fellow.
- A corrupt form of ransack, confused with ramshackle.
Wiktionary
- adj. In disrepair or disorder; poorly maintained; lacking upkeep, usually of buildings or vehicles.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Loose; disjointed; falling to pieces; out of repair.
- v. Prov. Eng. To search or ransack; to rummage.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. in deplorable condition
Etymologies
- First attested 1830, back-formation from ramshackled, from ransackled, past participle of ransackle ("to ransack"), frequentative of Middle English ransaken ("to pillage"). (Wiktionary)
- Back-formation from obsolete ranshackled, ramshackle, alteration of ransackled, past participle of ransackle, to ransack, frequentative of Middle English ransaken, to pillage; see ransack. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In the sequence that precedes the flag-raising, for instance, we see the beaches of Guadalcanal littered with the mutilated and charred corpses of both American and Japanese soldiers; and throughout we see wounded men lying in ramshackle battlefield hospitals, their flesh, fatigues, and bandages caked with dirt and blood, all on display in the most gruesome crystal clarity.”
“About 2,000 people live here, in ramshackle trailer homes, weather-battered recreational vehicles and well-kept brick houses.”
Mexicans Fleeing the Drug War Pour Into the U.S. | Impact Lab
“In drug dealings, most dealers lived in ramshackle housing/with their parents in run down neighborhoods and died early.”
“In the June issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, a important study by Tuba Üstüner (City University, London) and Douglas B. Holt (University of Oxford) explores how consumer culture is enacted in ramshackle neighborhoods on the peripheries of global cities.”
“In the deslocado settlements where internally displaced women of all ages and points of origins were still crowded in ramshackle shelters, supporting children and aged parents and, often, unemployed husbands through backbreaking work in borrowed fields, survival depended to a great extent on one's ability to court and capitalize on extensive networks of friends and kin.”
Where Women Make History: Gendered Tellings of Community and Change in Magude, Mozambique
“Had she lived to hear Humfrey's new barn, with the verge boards conceded to her taste, called ramshackle?”
“Artist and teacher Bruce and Debs Davies have transformed the basement of their terraced house - which they admit themselves is a little 'ramshackle' - into a cultural facility which they hope ultimately will be available for residencies and exhibitions on a regular basis.”
“During three separate Ontario stops this week, the Conservative leader has gradually dropped any reference to Ignatieff in his stump speeches and referred to the "ramshackle coalition" headed by Layton.”
“The hypnotically undulating rhythms and wavering repetitive melodies of this Congolese septet recall the ramshackle tribal energy of M. I.A.'s debut (with authenticity replacing the overweening ego/sense of entitlement).”
“Americans shudder at that poor education so many of our children receive, but the desire to get them out of schools that can only be described as ramshackle frequently collides with the attitude that no taxes should be raised to change the situation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ramshackle’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Words For Novel (Part 2)
fable, sprite, syphilitic, anvil, wonderstruck, vertigo, bridled, tufted, fettered, savvy, tweed fedora, tryst and 255 more...
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Words I Intend to use.
selectarian, solastalgia, niefling, eldritch, santagnostic, laborious, obstreperous, quibble, inusitate, cacology, tmesis, cacoethes and 50 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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Words of Wear
Words describing worn out objects
worn, tattered, threads, ratty, dirty, old, smudgy, hand me down, stained, threadbare, decrepit, shoddy and 21 more...
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pagecrusher's Words
fugu, ilk, rigamarole, superfluous, dearth, sacrosanct, moniker, bifurcate, villainous, onus, brazen, odin and 268 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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dharma66's list
words that pique my interest either by meaning, pronunciation, or spelling, and words that otherwise tickle my fancy!!
pique, elusive, serendipity, nefarious, redundant, pseudoscientific, obsequious, flack, quandary, impervious, perchance, translucent and 168 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
Words
teeter, headlong, reprobate, canard, ersatz, prevaricate, trenchant, minatory, fatuous, stultify, vitiate, fulminate and 135 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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thekatespanos's list
pomposity, gaggle, scintilla, lemming, bilk, vanquish, conflate, plenary, verisimilitude, perspicacious, rattletrap, obdurate and 325 more...
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wunderkammer's Words
smarmy, bubkes, elucidate, togs, aeolian, carp, kibosh, bosky, ramshackle, mange, harpy, effervesce and 163 more...
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spicolli's Words
terrapin, ravenous, fuck, sepulchral, garlic, suss, queer, curmudgeon, foodie, intricate, omphalos, subversion and 534 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ramshackle.

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