shipwrecky

English

WOTD – 29 July 2012

Etymology

shipwreck +‎ -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɪpɹɛki/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adjective

shipwrecky (comparative more shipwrecky, superlative most shipwrecky)

1. Characteristic of a shipwreck.
   • 1896, Elizabeth Westyn Timlow, “Chapter VI”, in Cricket at the Seashore‎^[1], Estes and Lauriat:

     "I was only joking. We've escaped from a burning vessel, you know, and every one else is either burned or drowned. We've provisions for a month, if we don't eat too much, and we're in the South Sea Islands. South Sea Islands sound nice and shipwrecky, don't you think so?"

2. (figurative) Weak, feeble; shaky.
   • 2007, Riaan Manser, Around Africa on My Bicycle, Jonathan Ball Publishers, →ISBN, page 301:

     So there I was, standing by the roadside in pitch darkness with my belongings and shipwrecky knees.

Quotations

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:shipwrecky.

Translations

characteristic of shipwreck

• Finnish: haaksirikkoinen

weak, feeble, shaky

• Finnish: tutiseva, heikko (fi), huonokuntoinen (fi)