shaky
/ˈʃeɪki
/adjective (shakier, shakiest)
1Shaking or trembling: she managed a shaky laugh...
- He looked up surprised, shook his head and gave out a shaky laugh.
- Gavin's voice sounds miraculous, the low baritone of it trembling in my already shaky spine, and I needed him here.
- The nurse came in and introduced herself, and with a shaky hand I shook hers.
Synonyms
trembling, shaking, tremulous, quivering, quivery, unsteady, wobbly, weak;
quavery
informal trembly
faint, dizzy, light-headed, giddy;
weak, weak-kneed, weak at the knees, wobbly, quivery, unsteady, groggy, muzzy
informal trembly, all of a tremble, all of a quiver, with rubbery legs, woozy
rare vertiginous
1.1Unstable because of poor construction or heavy use: a cracked, dangerously shaky table...
- Although it looked a little unstable and shaky, it would last the night.
- He was simply relating an event as if explaining he had spilled his coffee because the table was shaky.
- I'm writing this by the moonlight of an open window at a shaky table with a broken leg.
Synonyms
unsteady, unstable, wobbly, precarious, rocky, rickety, flimsy, frail;
decrepit, ramshackle, dilapidated, on its last legs
informal teetery
British informal wonky, dicky
1.2Not safe or reliable; liable to fail or falter: thoroughly shaky evidence after a shaky start the Scottish team made superb efforts...
- The many cases in which shaky evidence was sold to the public have not just been ruses concocted by spin doctors to win over public opinion.
- Although it's fairly obvious that he's innocent and that the evidence against him's shaky at best, the victim IDs him and he's sent to a holding cell to await trial.
- These unreliable claims are based on incomplete, shaky evidence.
Synonyms
faltering, unsteady, uncertain, tentative, wobbly, wobbling, tottering, tottery, teetering, doddering, doddery, shaking, staggering
unreliable, untrustworthy, questionable, dubious, doubtful, tenuous, suspect, unsubstantial, flimsy, weak, nebulous, unsound, undependable, unsupported, unsubstantiated, ungrounded, unfounded
informal iffy
British informal dodgy
Derivatives
shakily
/ adverb ...- He hands the glossy thing to me and I shakily accept it like a sad surrender.
- Picking up her glass shakily, Adrienne takes another sip of her water and decides to let it drop.
- His mouth opened but no sound came out, and he pointed shakily towards where he had been looking.
shakiness
- Following reduction or cessation of use, severe intermittent symptoms of palpitations, sweating, shakiness and insomnia were alleged starting in 1989 and lasting for 2-3 years, thus outside any relevant period of cover.
- It has grown to become one of the great weird voices, up there with those of Neil Young and Little Jimmy Scott, its shakiness having evolved into style.
- As an ex-Chief of Defence he had probably experienced at first hand the shakiness of our strategic policy foundations.
Rhymes
- quantum gravity
- quantum jump
- quantum leap
- quantum level
- quantum liquid
- quantum logic
- quantum-logical
- quantum-mechanical
- quantum mechanics
- quantum medicine
- quantum meruit
- quantum number
- quantum orbit
- quantum physics
- quantum solid
- quantum state
- quantum-statistical
- quantum statistics
- quantum suff.
- quantum sufficit
- quantum teleportation
- quantum-theoretically
- quantum theorist
- quantum theory
- quantum transition