as in clumsy
hastily or roughly constructed
my jerry-built wine racks may not look pretty, but they get the job done
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for jerry-built
Adjective
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That makes the killers kind of human and fallible and clumsy, and these movies get a lot of mileage out of the slapstick shenanigans of their slasher chases.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
27 Feb. 2026 -
Then, however, Phillips was sent off four minutes into the second half for a clumsy lunge at Svante Ingelsson, and suddenly Wednesday believed.—
Richard Sutcliffe,
New York Times,
22 Feb. 2026
Verb
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Traffic had also been snarled in Noblesville as the city rebuilt Pleasant Street and completed a new bridge over the White River to ease traffic on east-west streets in downtown.—
Jake Allen,
IndyStar,
3 Mar. 2026
-
And customer trust will need to be rebuilt.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
3 Mar. 2026
Verb
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By mining this archive and using supercomputers with custom programming to analyze the large data set, researchers reconstructed a 3D view of hydrogen distribution across a vast cosmic volume.—
Samantha Mathewson,
Space.com,
5 Mar. 2026
-
Software then reconstructed 200-plus terabytes of data generated into 3D volumes, with neural networks helping to automate the identification and analysis of anatomical structures.—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
5 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Chong would give them a rough idea of his thoughts, which the artists would then use to develop dialogue and other details that expanded on his vision.—
Samantha Masunaga,
Los Angeles Times,
4 Mar. 2026
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All that human saliva and mucus, absorbed and dried into a rough crust.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
4 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Perhaps surprisingly, the unfair pay and rude management didn’t trigger the most significant changes in attitude.—
Nick Lichtenberg,
Fortune,
7 Mar. 2026
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Whether a dish is tied to a long-standing family tradition, cultural heritage, or simply a treasured memory, etiquette experts say there’s nothing rude about choosing to keep certain recipes private.—
Alexandra Emanuelli,
Southern Living,
6 Mar. 2026
Verb
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Perhaps its most important practical edge is its ability to be retrofitted into existing structures.—
Mrigakshi Dixit,
Interesting Engineering,
5 Mar. 2026
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Every 777 has since been retrofitted with a new version of the unit.—
Burkhard Bilger,
New Yorker,
2 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Today, seniors seeking relief after surgery or injury face a deeply flawed system.—
Saul Anuzis,
Boston Herald,
6 Mar. 2026
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As in the real world, they’re populated by personalities that don’t neatly divide along a good-evil binary but are, instead, flawed yet lovable—to some other lovably flawed character, at least.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
6 Mar. 2026
Verb
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Conrad and Dial showed still images to the others at the jail, and devised a plan of capture should the man return.—
James Verini,
New Yorker,
2 Mar. 2026
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Still, scientists have devised clever ways to investigate how sleep and dreams can affect us.—
Veronique Greenwood,
Time,
26 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Jerry-built.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/jerry-built. Accessed 11 Mar. 2026.
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