ramshackle
adjective
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The Evolution of Ramshackle
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 comes from Old Norse rannsaka, which combines rann, "house," and -saka, a relation of the Old English word sēcan, "to seek.") A home that has been ransacked has had its contents thrown into disarray, and that image may be what inspired people 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. Ramshackle in modern use can also be figurative, as in "a ramshackle excuse for the error."
Examples of ramshackle in a Sentence
Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 12 Nov. 2025
Akın Balık Akın Balık, a seemingly ramshackle restaurant, comes alive at night, glittering with strings of lights and lanterns.
—Katie Nadworny, Travel + Leisure, 8 Nov. 2025
White’s performance of the song on Austin City Limits in 1980, which was eventually released as the album Live in Austin, TX, is a ramshackle revelation.
—Garret K. Woodward, Rolling Stone, 28 Oct. 2025
The series, based on novels by Mick Herron, follows a band of castoffs from the British national security service who are relegated to a ramshackle office building, with Lamb at its head.
—Barbara Ellis, Denver Post, 20 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ramshackle
Cite this Entry
“Ramshackle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ramshackle. Accessed 23 Nov. 2025.
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ramshackle
adjective
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