wordlover-2016-05-19
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Transcript.
Today's word is ramshackle, spelled R-A-M-S-H-A-C-K-L-E.
Ramshackle is an adjective that means appearing ready to collapse, rickety. It can also mean, more broadly, carelessly or loosely constructed. Here is the word used in a sentence from The Washington Post by Sarah Netter.
"He's also made the bold move of purchasing the ramshackle building behind his market, envisioning an Internet cafe."
The word ramshackle has nothing to do with rams, nor the act of being rammed, nor shackles for that matter. The word is an alteration of ransackled, an obsolete form of the verb ransack, meaning "to search through or plunder." Ransack in turn derives, via Middle English, from Old Norse words meaning "house" and "seek." A home that has been ransacked has had its contents thrown into disarray, and that image may be what caused us to start using ramshackle in the first half of the 19th century to describe something that is poorly constructed or in a state of near collapse. These days, ramshackle can also be used figuratively, as in "He could only devise a ramshackle excuse for his absence."
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. | 
发表于 2016-5-20 08:00
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发表于 2016-5-22 21:56
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