ramshackled, ppl. a.
(ˈræmʃæk(ə)ld)
Also 7 ranshacled, 8 -shackled, 9 Sc. -shachled.
[Perh. f. ram-, ranshackle ransackle v., as if = ‘wrecked or destroyed by plundering’; but cf. Sc. camshachle, to distort.]
= ramshackle a. i.
| 1675 S. Sewall Diary 31 July, A window which was all ranshacled. 1703 ― Let. 5 Jan., Barn and outhousing ranshackld. 1789 Loiterer No. 39. 12 The house itself was..such a ranshackeld old place that it must be pulled down. 1883 Amer. Missionary Dec. 367 [The Chinese Wall] a barbaric, ramshackled old thing of a great many centuries. |
So ˈramshackling a.
| 1868 Ld. Houghton Let. in Life (1890) II. 196 The house is a ramshackling old place, without a fine room in it. 1951 Dylan Thomas Poems (1971) 211 And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults. |