ramshackle
/ˈɹæmˌʃæk.əl/
ramshackle adjective: in disrepair or disorder; poorly maintained; lacking upkeep, usually of buildings or vehicles.
Adjective
ramshackle (comparative more ramshackle, superlative most ramshackle)
- In disrepair or disorder; poorly maintained; lacking upkeep, usually of buildings or vehicles.
- They stayed in a ramshackle cabin on the beach.
- 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
- 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...2022 October 5, David Wallace-Wells, “Progressives Should Rally Around a Clean Energy Construction Boom”, in The New York Times
Verb
ramshackle (third-person singular simple present ramshackles, present participle ramshackling, simple past and past participle ramshackled)
- To ransack.
ramshackle meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
ramshackle in Urdu
- چھکڑا, ٹوٹا پھوٹا
ramshackle in Bengali
- জীর্ণশীর্ণ
ramshackle in Malayalam
- പൊളിഞ്ഞ, കേടുവന്ന, വലിച്ചുവാരിയിട്ട് തിരയുക
ramshackle in Kannada
- ಶಿಥಿಲವಾದ, ನಾಶದ ಸ್ಥಿತಿಯಲ್ಲಿರುವ, ಕುಸಿಯುತ್ತಿರುವ, ಜರ್ಜರಿತ
More languagesFewer languages
- ramshackle in Persian
- لکنتی lakanti
Examples of ramshackle in a sentence
- 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...
- 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 […] :
- A ramshackle old empire. (of Austria-Hungary).1914, David Lloyd George, (Please provide the book title or journal name):
- 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.1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:
Synonyms of ramshackle
10 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
- intact
- in good repair
- like new
- rustless
- spick-and-span
- thrifty
- unbroken
- undamaged
- unimpaired
- untainted
2 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of ramshackle
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more ramshackle |
| superlative | most ramshackle |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | ramshackles |
| present participle | ramshackling |
| past participle | ramshackled |
| past | ramshackled |
Origin of ramshackle
First attested in 1830, a back-formation from ramshackled, from ransackled, past participle of ransackle (“to ransack”), frequentative of Middle English ransaken (“to pillage”).
Words formed from ramshackle
Questions about ramshackle
- What does ramshackle mean?
- Ramshackle means in disrepair or disorder; poorly maintained; lacking upkeep, usually of buildings or vehicles.
- What is ramshackle in Urdu?
- Ramshackle in Urdu is چھکڑا, ٹوٹا پھوٹا. See Ramshackle meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use ramshackle in a sentence?
- There came […] my lord the cardinal, in his ramshackle coach.
- What part of speech is ramshackle?
- Ramshackle can be an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce ramshackle?
- Ramshackle is pronounced /ˈɹæmˌʃæk.əl/.
Words near ramshackle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ramshackle (page history and authors); ramshackle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ramshackle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ramshackle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ramshackle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ramshackle.ogg, en-au-ramshackle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ramshackle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ramshackle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.