wonky
1 Americanadjective
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(of a person) shaky, groggy, or unsteady.
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not exactly straight or balanced; off-kilter.
a wonky chair with an uneven leg.
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not working properly; faulty; unreliable.
Something went wonky with my computer.
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That's just odd logic and wonky reasoning.
adjective
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stupid; boring; unattractive.
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relating to, appealing to, or characteristic of a wonk; concerned with minute details of a topic or issue.
a wonky bureaucrat.
adjective
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shaky or unsteady
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not in correct alignment; askew
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liable to break down or develop a fault
Other Word Forms
- wonkiness noun
Etymology
Origin of wonky1
First recorded in 1915–20; perhaps variant of dialectal wanky, equivalent to wank(le) ( Middle English wankel, Old English wancol; wench ) + -y 1
Origin of wonky1
First recorded in 1975–80; wonk ( def. ) + -y 1 ( def. )
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.
Between the famously liberal City by the Bay and Sacramento, he quietly amassed influence and carved out an unusual lane: a wonky Democrat who accelerates housing construction through legislation that pushes for denser development.
But what gives “Song Sung Blue” a wonky kind of depth is that there’s only so high Mike and Claire can rise.
From Los Angeles Times
When it was founded in 1987, its creators envisioned a wonky gathering of academics to swap ideas about how brains and machines learn.
The idea would be to avoid wonky decisions and let common sense prevail.
His timing was off and his mechanics were wonky.
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.
