ramshackle

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: ram=shack=le

CIDE DICTIONARY

ramshackle, a. [Etymol. uncertain.].

 Loose; disjointed; falling to pieces; out of repair.  [1913 Webster]
"There came . . . my lord the cardinal, in his ramshackle coach."  [1913 Webster]

ramshackle, v. t. 

 To search or ransack; to rummage.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

ramshackle, adj. (usu. of a house or vehicle) tumbledown, rickety.

Etymology

earlier ramshackled past part. of obs. ransackle RANSACK

DEVIL DICTIONARY

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.

THESAURUS

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

ROGET THESAURUS

ramshackle

Danger

N danger, peril, insecurity, jeopardy, risk, hazard, venture, precariousness, slipperiness, instability, defenselessness, exposure, vulnerability, vulnerable point, heel of Achilles, forlorn hope, leap in the dark, road to ruin, faciles descensus Averni, hairbreadth escape, cause for alarm, source of danger, rock ahead, breakers ahead, storm brewing, clouds in the horizon, clouds gathering, warning, alarm, apprehension, in danger, endangered, fraught with danger, dangerous, hazardous, perilous, parlous, periculous, unsafe, unprotected &c (safe, protect), insecure, untrustworthy, built upon, sand, on a sandy basis, wildcat, defenseless, fenceless, guardless, harborless, unshielded, vulnerable, expugnable, exposed, open to, aux abois, at bay, on the wrong side of the wall, on a lee shore, on the rocks, at stake, in question, precarious, critical, ticklish, slippery, slippy, hanging by a thread, with a halter round one's neck, between the hammer and the anvil, between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea, between two fires, on the edge of a precipice, on the brink of a precipice, on the verge of a precipice, on the edge of a volcano, in the lion's den, on slippery ground, under fire, not out of the wood, unwarned, unadmonished, unadvised, unprepared, off one's guard, tottering, unstable, unsteady, shaky, top-heavy, tumbledown, ramshackle, crumbling, waterlogged, helpless, guideless, in a bad way, reduced to the last extremity, at the last extremity, trembling in the balance, nodding to its fall, threatening, ominous, illomened, alarming, explosive, adventurous, incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim, nam tua res agitur paries dum proximus ardet.