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.
An external inquiry will be carried out at Dundee University, which is expected to highlight major management failures and a shonky IT system for student recruitment.
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 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
That 2016 movie’s subtitle, Dawn of Justice, was always something of a shonky afterthought that essentially gave away the movie’s ending before we had seen the film’s opening frame.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 20, 2020
The dialogue is shonky to say the least, the plotting puffy and bloated.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 28, 2016
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.
