shonky
Britishadjective
-
of dubious integrity or legality
-
unreliable; unsound
Etymology
Origin of shonky
C19: perhaps from Yiddish shonniker or from sh ( oddy ) + ( w ) onky
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Characters in his bogan version say "g'day", friends are "mates" and those with questionable ethics are deemed "shonky".
From BBC • Nov. 14, 2025
"It's embarrassing that a supposedly world-leading country has such a shonky infrastructure," she says.
From BBC • Dec. 11, 2021
The Guardian declared the movie "toe-curlingly, teeth-furringly, pillow-bitingly ghastly," while the Daily Mail said that the film "takes the romance of the century and turns it into a cheap, shonky and unintentionally hilarious filmus horribilis."
From Salon • Apr. 29, 2021
Perhaps that overwhelmed feeling we have when facing this onslaught of content is what draws us to familiar tokens from childhood, shonky old stories and celluloid-scratched images that set the hippocampus tingling.
From The Guardian • Jun. 15, 2020
The dictionary definition of cult viewing, Matthew Holness’s spoof of shonky British horror barely made a dent when it aired, but has since become regarded as a modern classic.
From The Guardian • Sep. 16, 2019
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
