Ramshackle

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Ramshackle \Ram"shac*kle\ (r[a^]m"sh[a^]k*k'l), a. [Etymol.
     uncertain.]
     Loose; disjointed; falling to pieces; out of repair.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           There came . . . my lord the cardinal, in his


           ramshackle coach.                        --Thackeray.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Ramshackle \Ram"shac*kle\, v. t.
     To search or ransack; to rummage. [Prov. Eng.]
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  ramshackle
       adj : in deplorable condition; "a street of bedraggled tenements";
             "a broken-down fence"; "a ramshackle old pier"; "a
             tumble-down shack" [syn: {bedraggled}, {broken-down}, {dilapidated},
              {tatterdemalion}, {tumble-down}, {unsound}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  35 Moby Thesaurus words for "ramshackle":
     battered, beat-up, beaten up, broken-down, crumbling, decrepit,
     derelict, dilapidated, doddering, flimsy, groggy, in disrepair,
     in ruins, insubstantial, jerry-built, neglected, ricketish,
     rickety, rocky, ruined, ruinous, run-down, shaky, slummy, spidery,
     spindly, teetering, teetery, tottering, tottery, tumbledown,
     unstable, unsteady, unsubstantial, wobbly
  
  

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  RAMSHACKLE, adj.  Pertaining to a certain order of architecture,
  otherwise known as the Normal American.  Most of the public buildings
  of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our
  earlier architects preferred the Ironic.  Recent additions to the
  White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of
  the Dorians.  They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a
  brick.