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What is "jerry-built"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
jerry-built
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ jerry-built structures
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ They therefore attracted labour without any hindrance, providing jerry-built, damp and insanitary hovels for letting to local farm workers.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Jerry-built

Jerry-built \Jer"ry-built`\, a.

  1. Built hastily and of bad materials; as, jerry-built houses.

    Syn: slipshod, ramshackle, flimsy.

  2. Developed in an unsystematic or inexpert manner; built haphazardly; -- used of objects, organizations, plans, etc.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
jerry-built

1869, in which jerry has a sense of "bad, defective," probably a pejorative use of the male nickname Jerry (a popular form of Jeremy; compare Jerry-sneak, mid-19c., "sneaking fellow, a hen-pecked husband" [OED]). Or from or influenced by nautical slang jury "temporary," which came to be used of all sorts of makeshift and inferior objects (see jury (adj.)).

Wiktionary
jerry-built

a. Built cheaply and shoddily.

WordNet
jerry-built
jerry-built

adj. of inferior workmanship and materials; "mean little jerry-built houses" [syn: shoddy]