ramshackle

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“
They are old, ramshackle, and filthy.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. adjective So poorly constructed or kept up that disintegration is likely; rickety: a ramshackle cabin in the woods.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Tess had expected something a little more ramshackle, a run-down bungalow with a "Property Is Theft" sign on the unlocked front door. —  Lippman, Laura - [Tess Monaghan 04] - In Big Trouble
  • Cobbles Baby! is rough and ramshackle, and worthy of several viewings! —  PezCyclingNews.com
  • Perfect ramshackle, the way jazz should sound to me. —  Electronic Cerebrectomy
  • Opposition spokesman for the environment David Davis described the EPA [Environmental Protection Authority] as a ramshackle organisation that needed to be overhauled. —  OpenMarket.org
  • It revealed a very shabby, ramshackle, and dingy office; but the long table in it was new, oaken, and handsome. —  Queed
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Back-formation from obsolete ranshackled, ramshackle, alteration of ransackled, past participle of ransackle, to ransack, frequentative of Middle English ransaken, to pillage; see ransack.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also, as adjective, ramshackled, Scots ramshackled; from Icelandic ramskakkr, quite wrong, absurd (Cleasby and Vigfusson); otherwise defined as “ramshackle, crazy”; from ramr, strong, very, as intensive prefix, very, + skakkr, wry, distorted, unequal, later Scots shach, distort: see shach. The second element in the English word is apparently conformed to shackle; cf. Icelandic skökull, Swedish skakel, Danish skagle, the pole of a carriage that shakes about: see shackle.
 

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/ˈræmʃækl/
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