ramshackle en · ADJ
Pronunciation
Etymology
First attested in 1830, a back-formation from ramshackled, from ransackled, past participle of ransackle (“to ransack”), frequentative of Middle English ransaken (“to pillage”).
Meanings
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In disrepair or disorder; poorly maintained; lacking upkeep, usually of buildings or vehicles.
They stayed in a ramshackle cabin on the beach.
There came […] my lord the cardinal, in his ramshackle coach.
1854, Arthur Pendennis [pseudonym; William Makepeace Thackeray], The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], →OCLC, page 347:The back of the Radley house was less inviting than the front: a ramshackle porch ran the width of the house; there were two doors and two dark windows between the doors. Instead of a column, a rough two-by-four supported one end of the roof. An old Franklin stove sat in a corner of the porch; above it a hat-rack mirror caught the moon and shone eerily.
1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:Steady old Curés come jolting past, now and then, in such ramshackle, rusty, musty, clattering coaches as no Englishman would believe in;[…]
1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy, London: […] Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC:A ramshackle old empire. (of Austria-Hungary).
1914, David Lloyd George, (Please provide the book title or journal name):When they got out of the Gare du Nord, and trundled along the cobbled streets in a ramshackle, noisy cab, it seemed to him that he was breathing a new air so intoxicating that he could hardly restrain himself from shouting aloud.
1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XXXVIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:The villa was a roomy white house, which, as is the case with most continental houses, looked to an English eye frail, ramshackle, and absurdly frivolous, more like a pagoda in a tea-garden than a place where one slept.
1915, Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out, London: Duckworth & Co., […], →OCLC:I called for the cheeses, and took them away in a cab. It was a ramshackle affair, dragged along by a knock-kneed, broken-winded somnambulist, which his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm, during conversation, referred to as a horse.
1889, Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat […] :
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Badly or carelessly organized.
So ramshackle was the locals' attempt at defence that, with energetic wingers pouring into the space behind panicked full-backs and centre-halves dizzied by England's movement, it was cruel to behold at times.
2012 September 7, Dominic Fifield, “England start World Cup campaign with five-goal romp against Moldova”, in The Guardian:The alliance that pushed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August was always a somewhat fragile and ramshackle one: Green New Dealers and the coal-state senator Joe Manchin, carbon-capture geeks and environmental justice warriors, all herded together in the sort of big-tent play you get with a 50-50 Senate and one party functionally indifferent on climate.
2022 October 5, David Wallace-Wells, “Progressives Should Rally Around a Clean Energy Construction Boom”, in The New York Times:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| most ramshackle | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| more ramshackle | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic |
Antonyms
undamaged · intact · spick-and-span · rustless · thrifty · like new · well-kept · unbroken · untainted · unimpaired · well-preserved · in good repair
Deriveds
Hypernyms
abandoned · tattered · cheerless · deteriorated · dangerous · broken · jagged
Hyponyms
Synonyms
ramshackle · broken-down · beat · timeworn · scroungy · ruinous · neglected · beat up · run-down · crumbling · shabby · tumbledown · draggled · derelict · tacky · dilapidated · beaten up · bedraggled · tatterdemalion · mean · seedy
Translations (37)
ru разваливающийся (in disrepair or disorder) · nn falleferdig (in disrepair or disorder) · cmn 毀壞的 /毁坏的 (in disrepair or disorder) · nl gammel (in disrepair or disorder) · ja いやしい (in disrepair or disorder) · nb falleferdig (in disrepair or disorder) · fi rämä (in disrepair or disorder) · bg разнебитен (in disrepair or disorder) · nl bouwvallig (in disrepair or disorder) · ca ruïnós (in disrepair or disorder) · fa لکنتی (in disrepair or disorder) · hu rozoga (in disrepair or disorder) · bg паянтов (in disrepair or disorder) · it diroccante (in disrepair or disorder) · ru ве́тхий (in disrepair or disorder) · uk напіврозвалений (in disrepair or disorder) · it cadente (in disrepair or disorder) · it sgangherato (in disrepair or disorder) · cmn 破敗的 /破败的 (in disrepair or disorder) · cmn 破舊的 /破旧的 (in disrepair or disorder) · de baufällig (in disrepair or disorder) · fi ränsistynyt (in disrepair or disorder) · de marode (in disrepair or disorder) · it malandato (in disrepair or disorder) · uk напівзруйнований (in disrepair or disorder) · de klapprig (in disrepair or disorder) · pl rozpadający się (in disrepair or disorder) · it pericolante (in disrepair or disorder) · mi karukaru (in disrepair or disorder) · cs zchátralý (in disrepair or disorder) · cs polorozpadlý (in disrepair or disorder) · pl rozklekotany (in disrepair or disorder) · fi rähjäinen (in disrepair or disorder) · hu rozzant (in disrepair or disorder) · fr délabré (in disrepair or disorder) · pt malcuidado (in disrepair or disorder) · it traballante (in disrepair or disorder)