Word of the Day, May 20

[Uadzit]

ramshackle • RAM-shak-ul • adjective

*1 : appearing ready to collapse : rickety

2 : carelessly or loosely constructed

Example Sentence:
The properties were separated by a ramshackle wooden fence that was just barely held together with chicken wire.

Did you know?
"Ramshackle" has nothing to do with rams, nor the act of being rammed, nor shackles. The word is an alteration of "ransackled," an obsolete form of the verb "ransack," meaning "to search through or plunder." ("Ransack" in turn derives, via Middle English, from Old Norse words meaning "house" and "seek.") A home that has been ransacked has had its contents thrown into disarray, and that image may be what caused us to start using "ramshackle" in the first half of the 19th century to describe something that is poorly constructed or in a state of near collapse. These days, "ramshackle" can also be used figuratively, as in "He could only devise a ramshackle excuse for his absence."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.  

[chessiejo]

so in today's parlance it would be "tossed".

"the local police tossed the black driver's Mercedes on suspicion of being richer than white guys, and found nothing, and gave it back to him completely trashed, without pressing charges."

tossed.  

[Eggy-Egg]

Thanks for that, Uadzit! =D I missed reading your words of the day and such.  

[chessiejo]

Eggy-Egg

Thanks for that, Uadzit! =D I missed reading your words of the day and such.

yep, i dote on her verbiage.

and i also love and chortle at your name, eggy!  

[Eggy-Egg]

xD Thanks~ D; I had to change my name. >__> I'm the one who used to be called -aisaretai-. xD