RICKETY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does rickety mean? 

• RICKETY (adjective)
  The adjective RICKETY has 3 senses:

1. inclined to shake as from weakness or defect

2. affected with, suffering from, or characteristic of rickets

3. lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality

  Familiarity information: RICKETY used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RICKETY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Inclined to shake as from weakness or defect

Synonyms:

rickety; shaky; wobbly; wonky

Context example:

the bridge still stands though one of the arches is wonky

Similar:

unstable (lacking stability or fixity or firmness)

Derivation:

ricketiness (the quality of not being steady or securely fixed in place)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Affected with, suffering from, or characteristic of rickets

Synonyms:

rachitic; rickety

Context example:

a rachitic patient

Similar:

ill; sick (affected by an impairment of normal physical or mental function)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality

Synonyms:

debile; decrepit; feeble; infirm; rickety; sapless; weak; weakly

Context example:

her body looked sapless

Similar:

frail (physically weak)

 Context examples 

It was an old rickety door and gave at once before our united strength.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is the most devilish little rickety business I ever beheld!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Of the shape of the room, of the cracks in the ceiling, of the paper on the walls, of the flaws in the window-glass making ripples and dimples on the prospect, of the washing-stand being rickety on its three legs, and having a discontented something about it, which reminded me of Mrs. Gummidge under the influence of the old one.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I made his honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to conceive of me, but assured him at the same time, “that my birth was of the lower sort, having been born of plain honest parents, who were just able to give me a tolerable education; that nobility, among us, was altogether a different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idleness and luxury; that, as soon as years will permit, they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth, disagreeable person, and unsound constitution (merely for the sake of money), whom they hate and despise. 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. That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust appearance is so disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his real father to have been a groom or a coachman. The imperfections of his mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen, dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)