shackly, a. U.S. and dial.
(ˈʃæklɪ)
Also shackley.
[f. shackle n.2 or v.2 + -y.]
Shaky, rickety; ramshackle.
| 1843 Indiana Q. Mag. Hist. III. 121, I stopped at a small poverty-stricken little town called Mt Meridian; shackly houses, huts and hovels..gave no great expectation of refinements. 1843 New Mirror 18 Nov. 116/2 Hitched with oakum before a shackley go-cart, the rocking evolution of whose wheels showed that it was long since they had firmly revolved in their own proper axis. 1848 Bartlett Dict. Amer. s.v., What a shackly old carriage! c 1850 Dow Serm. III. (Bartlett 1860), The general fly-offs and moral unhitches incident to poor shackly mortality. 1884 ‘Mark Twain’ Huck. Finn xxi. 208 All kinds of old shackly wagons. 1897 ― More Tramps Abroad lxxi, A gaunt, shackly country lout six feet high. 1896 De Vinne Moxon's Mech. Exerc., Printing Pref. p. xvii, The poverty of the old printing-house... Its scant supply of types, its shackly hand-presses [etc.]. Ibid. 426 The needless wearing of elastic or shackly-fitted parts of the press. |