rickety

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Related to rickety: rickets

rick·et·y

(rĭk′ĭ-tē)

adj. rick·et·i·er, rick·et·i·est

1. Likely to break or fall apart; shaky.

2. Feeble with age; infirm.

3. Of, having, or resembling rickets.

[From rickets.]

rick′et·i·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

rickety

(ˈrɪkɪtɪ)

adj

1. (of a structure, piece of furniture, etc) likely to collapse or break; shaky

2. feeble with age or illness; infirm

3. (Pathology) relating to, resembling, or afflicted with rickets

[C17: from rickets]

ˈricketiness n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

rick•et•y

(ˈrɪk ɪ ti)

adj. -et•i•er, -et•i•est.

1. likely to fall or collapse; shaky: a rickety chair.

2. feeble in the joints; tottering: a rickety old man.

3. old, dilapidated, or in disrepair.

4. irregular, as motion or action.

5. affected with rickets.

6. pertaining to or of the nature of rickets.

[1675–85; ricket (s) + -y¹]

rick′et•i•ness, n.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Adj.	1.	rickety - inclined to shake as from weakness or defect; "a rickety table"; "a wobbly chair with shaky legs"; "the ladder felt a little wobbly"; "the bridge still stands though one of the arches is wonky" shaky, wobbly, wonky unstable - lacking stability or fixity or firmness; "unstable political conditions"; "the tower proved to be unstable in the high wind"; "an unstable world economy"
	2.	rickety - affected with, suffering from, or characteristic of rickets; "rickety limbs and joints"; "a rachitic patient" rachitic ill, sick - affected by an impairment of normal physical or mental function; "ill from the monotony of his suffering"
	3.	rickety - lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality; "a feeble old woman"; "her body looked sapless" debile, infirm, sapless, weakly, decrepit, feeble, weak frail - physically weak; "an invalid's frail body"

rickety

adjective shaky, broken, weak, broken-down, frail, insecure, feeble, precarious, derelict, flimsy, wobbly, imperfect, tottering, ramshackle, dilapidated, decrepit, unsteady, unsound, infirm, jerry-built She climbed the rickety wooden stairway.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

rickety

adjective

Not physically steady or firm:

precarious, shaky, tottering, tottery, unstable, unsteady, wobbly.

Translations

مُتَقَلْقِل، عُرْضَةٌ للسُّقوط

vratký

vakkelvorn

wacklig

haurashuterariisitautinen

caduc délabré vieux

valtur, óstöîugur

ļodzīgs

rickety

[ˈrɪkɪtɪ] ADJ

1. (= wobbly) → tambaleante, inseguro; [old car] → desvencijado

2. (Med) → raquítico

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

rickety

[ˈrɪkɪti] adj [chair, table] → bancal(e); [stairs, house] → branlant(e); [bus] → bringuebalant(e)
a rickety old bus → un vieil autobus tout bringuebalant

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

rickety

adj

furniture, stairs etc → wack(e)lig; vehicle → klapprig

(Med) → rachitisch

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

rickety

[ˈrɪkɪtɪ] adj (furniture, structure) → traballante

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

rickety

(ˈrikəti) adjective

not well built; unsteady; likely to fall over or collapse. a rickety table.

References in classic literature ?

Old Sharon doubled his dirty fists and drummed with them on the rickety table in a comical frenzy of impatience while Mr.

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At the side of the bed, with a bottle of gin on the rickety table between them, sat two hideous leering, painted monsters, wearing the dress of women.

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The furniture could not have been much simpler: a very old chair, a rickety old bed, and a tumble-down table.

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And so the two walked together through the dark alley to the end of the rickety, dismantled dock; the one thinking of the vast reward the King would lavish upon her for the information she felt sure she alone could give; the other feeling beneath his mantle for the hilt of a long dagger which nestled there.

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They had to help me down the rickety wharf and into the salmon boat.

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At night the boxes and other effects of the passengers were placed against the rickety doors.

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The manager's voice recalled him from a more careful inspection of the building, to the opposite side of the proscenium, where, at a small mahogany table with rickety legs and of an oblong shape, sat a stout, portly female, apparently between forty and fifty, in a tarnished silk cloak, with her bonnet dangling by the strings in her hand, and her hair (of which she had a great quantity) braided in a large festoon over each temple.

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I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I'm as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if it wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I'm none the better for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you've been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for it in pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!"

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That the productions of such marriages are generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which means the family seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide a healthy father, among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and continue the breed.

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The hard, narrow, wretched, rickety bed of Don Quixote stood first in the middle of this star-lit stable, and close beside it Sancho made his, which merely consisted of a rush mat and a blanket that looked as if it was of threadbare canvas rather than of wool.

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Pepper raised his stick and silently indicated a shrub, bearing among sparse leaves a voluminous purple blossom; and at a rickety canter the last stage of the way was accomplished.

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But a rickety wooden thing like you has no right to be alive."

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