shaky

Etymology

It is formed from English shake + -y,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from the verb or the noun shake, the latter in the sense of a crack in timber.^[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of timber, split or full of cracks: 1703, in Richard Neve's builder's dictionary The City and Countrey Purchaser,^[2][7] or 1808 in Etymonline, of trees and logs.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The timber sense came from shakes, the cracks in wood.^[4] The figurative sense "uncertain, of doubtful integrity" is recorded by 1834,^[4] and the OED's first quotations for the main modern senses come from Thackeray: of a person's credit or position, insecure (1841), of handwriting, tremulous (1847), and of a person, trembling with age or fear (1850).^[2][4] A shaky structure, liable to give way, is recorded from 1850,^[2][4] poor health from 1844, in a letter of Dickens,^[2] wavering belief from 1853,^[2] and doubtful knowledge from 1860, in Hotten's Dictionary of Slang.^[2] In 20th-century slang the Shaky Isles is New Zealand, so called for its earthquakes (1933),^[2][3] and a shaky do was RAF slang for a risky situation (1942).^[2] British slang used shaky of shabby clothes (1850), and American criminals of a town that was unsafe to work in (1940).^[8] In English dialects it could mean jolting, of a road (Caithness, Lincolnshire), doubtful, of a story (Berkshire), poor (Lincolnshire), or idle and shabby (Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, East Anglia, Sussex), and shaky-grass was the quaking-grass.^[9]

Timeline

• 1703 – of timber, fissured.^[2][7]
• 1808 – of trees or logs, split, according to Etymonline.^[4]
• 1834 – uncertain, of questionable integrity.^[4]
• 1841 – of credit or position, insecure.^[2][4]
• 1844 – not sound in health.^[2]
• 1847 – of handwriting, tremulous.^[2]
• 1850 – of a structure, liable to give way; of a person, trembling.^[2][4]
• 1860 – of knowledge, unreliable; causing jolting.^[2]
• 1933 – the Shaky Isles, New Zealand.^[2]
• 1942 – RAF slang shaky do, a risky situation.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Trembling or unsteady, as from age, illness or fear: His hands were shaky after the accident.^[10][2][3]
2. Liable to give way or collapse; rickety or unsound: a shaky old ladder.^[7][2][3]
3. Not to be relied on; uncertain or questionable: Her grasp of the rules is shaky.^[10][7][3]
4. Insecure or precarious, as of a position, finances or government.^[7][2][3]
5. Of handwriting, tremulous.^[2][3]
6. Of timber, full of cracks or shakes.^[7][2][3]

Word family

• shakily
• shakiness

Related words

• shake

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins