ramshackle

ramshackle
    adj 1: in deplorable condition; "a street of bedraggled
           tenements"; "a broken-down fence"; "a ramshackle old
           pier"; "a tumble-down shack" [syn: {bedraggled}, {broken-
           down}, {derelict}, {dilapidated}, {ramshackle},
           {tatterdemalion}, {tumble-down}]
    

Ramshackle \Ram"shac*kle\ (r[a^]m"sh[a^]k*k'l), a. [Etymol.
   uncertain.]
   Loose; disjointed; falling to pieces; out of repair.
   [1913 Webster]

         There came . . . my lord the cardinal, in his
         ramshackle coach.                        --Thackeray.
   [1913 Webster]
    

Ramshackle \Ram"shac*kle\, v. t.
   To search or ransack; to rummage. [Prov. Eng.]
   [1913 Webster]
    

RAMSHACKLE, adj.  Pertaining to a certain order of architecture,
otherwise known as the Normal American.  Most of the public buildings
of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our
earlier architects preferred the Ironic.  Recent additions to the
White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of
the Dorians.  They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a
brick.
    

35 Moby Thesaurus words for "ramshackle":
      battered, beat-up, beaten up, broken-down, crumbling, decrepit,
      derelict, dilapidated, doddering, flimsy, groggy, in disrepair,
      in ruins, insubstantial, jerry-built, neglected, ricketish,
      rickety, rocky, ruined, ruinous, run-down, shaky, slummy, spidery,
      spindly, teetering, teetery, tottering, tottery, tumbledown,
      unstable, unsteady, unsubstantial, wobbly