Rickety

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of an object: not strong or sturdy, as because of poor construction or upkeep; not safe or secure.

    "He hesitated about climbing such a small, rickety ladder."

  2. 2
    Feeble in the joints; tottering.

    "The rickety old man hardly managed to climb the stairs."

  3. 3
    Affected with or suffering from rickets; rachitic.
Adjective
  1. 1
    lacking bodily or muscular strength or vitality wordnet
  2. 2
    inclined to shake as from weakness or defect wordnet
  3. 3
    affected with, suffering from, or characteristic of rickets wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
decrepitprecariousrachiticshakywobblyprecarious

Example

More examples

"An old, rickety footbridge is the only way to get to the other side of the gorge."

Etymology

From dialectal ricket (“unstable, rickety”) + -y, and/or ricket (“to move noisily and in a reckless way”) + -y. Alternatively, and perhaps less likely, from rickets + -y.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.