Word.ws English Dictionary

rickle

rickle noun: a loose, disordered collection of things; a heap; a jumble.

Noun

rickle (plural rickles)

  1. (Scotland) A loose, disordered collection of things; a heap; a jumble.
    • It was no more than a butt and a ben, with a rickle of sheds behind it where old Pooty kept his donkey that was nearly as old […]1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Canongate Books, published 2008, →ISBN, page 22
  2. (Scotland) A small rick of grain.
  3. (Scotland) A dilapidated or ramshackle building.
    • We came home by a place called Speke Hall — built 1589 — the queerest-looking old rickle of boards that I ever set eyes on; […]1844, Jane Welsh Carlyle, letter to Thomas Carlyle dated 28 June 1844, re-printed in New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle (ed. Alexander Carlyle), John Lane (1903), pages 136-137
  4. (Scotland) Any object in poor condition, particularly a vehicle.
    • On a memorable night was the old rickle of a boat taken out to the West Sands during a terrible storm, when Admiral Maitland Dougall distinguished himself by his valiant services.1899, Golf Illustrated, volume 2, page 93
  5. (Scotland) An emaciated person or animal.
    • But it's a bad disaise that can't be cured somehow, Manis said to himself — so be began to consider how to sell his rickle of a pony to advantage.1899, Seumas MacManus, In Chimney Corners: Merry Tales of Irish Folk Lore, Doubleday & McClure, published 1899, page 228

Forms of rickle

pluralrickles

Origin of rickle

From Scots rickle, from Old English hrēac (“stack”) with the Scots suffix -le (“full (of)”).

Phrases with rickle

Words that rhyme with rickle

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rickle

What does rickle mean?
Rickle means a loose, disordered collection of things; a heap; a jumble.
What part of speech is rickle?
Rickle is a noun.
What is the plural of rickle?
The plural of rickle is rickles.

Words near rickle in the dictionary

  1. rickhouses
  2. Ricki
  3. Rickie
  4. ricking
  5. Rickinson
  6. rickle
  7. rickle o' banes
  8. rickle o' bones
  9. rickle of banes
  10. rickle of bones
  11. Ricklefs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rickle (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.

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