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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
shaky
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a rocky/shaky start (=a rather bad start)
▪ After a shaky start, they managed two wins in five matches.
shaky (=morale that could easily become low)
▪ The team's morale is shaky after their series of losses.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
very
▪ She felt very shaky and she was glad he held her arm.
▪ Only when he was no longer in sight did she release a very shaky breath.
▪ All the same, just thinking about it made her feel very shaky inside.
▪ Today the couple are having counselling but the marriage is very shaky.
▪ Otherwise it is likely that strategic analysis will rest on very shaky foundations.
▪ But for the Thorn deal cash, the bottom line would have looked very shaky.
■ NOUN
breath
▪ Only when he was no longer in sight did she release a very shaky breath.
▪ She drew a long, shaky breath.
▪ He took a shaky breath, and I thought he would speak, then he bit his lip and remained silent.
▪ Taking a deep, shaky breath, she slowly followed Leo.
foundation
▪ Closer analysis reveals a shakier foundation.
▪ The hypothesis that paradoxical pain is caused by abnormal metabolism of morphine is plausible but built on shaky foundations.
▪ The social reality constructed by the malestream approach rests on shaky foundations.
▪ Otherwise it is likely that strategic analysis will rest on very shaky foundations.
▪ How then can religious certainty be based upon the inevitably shaky foundation of historical investigation?
ground
▪ Mu is on even shakier ground.
▪ Jody reassured them as best she could, but she knew she was on shaky ground.
▪ Here I must admit that I am on shaky ground.
▪ It was solely on the last score that Cecilia, our housekeeper for the past 20 years, remained on shaky grounds.
▪ Such sarcasm ill becomes anybody on the shaky ground that Goldschmidt here treads.
▪ But the city of Philadelphia is hurting -- no longer near bankruptcy, but still on shaky ground.
▪ Here Thorpe is on shakier ground.
▪ Both organisations admit there may be occasional breaches, but says that Animal Aid is still on shaky ground.
hand
▪ Once in her own room Paige wiped a shaky hand over her brow.
▪ Constructors with shaky hands are advised to place thin card between each pair of leads being soldered and the fabric.
▪ I stared helplessly at the announcement, written now in a very shaky hand, and did as he asked.
▪ Though he wasn't a ghost she was still too scared to touch that small, shaky hand.
start
▪ After a shaky start, we took them to the cleaners. b.?
▪ He converted nine in a row at one point, after a shaky start.
▪ We took them, after a shaky start, to the cleaners.
▪ Their work together got off to a shaky start.
▪ In that context, 22-year-old Faulkner said the shaky start to coeducation at the Citadel was little wonder.
▪ After a shaky start, the president now gets a better than 50 percent approval rating in opinion polls here.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a shaky ladder
▪ a shaky relationship
▪ Even after the long months of therapy Owen was still very shaky.
▪ Her grandfather was a little shaky on his feet after the fall.
▪ The baby's taken her first few shaky steps.
▪ The evidence is shaky, at best.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A: The calves are shaky.
▪ After both Millie and joseph were dead, Lally would write to my grandmother in her shaky old hand.
▪ But most agreed, too, that the foundations of the show were shaky.
▪ By far the shakiest part of the calculation is the average mutation rate.
▪ He seemed more concerned to break than maintain the shaky truce existing between him and his father.
▪ Not because they made bad or greedy investments, and lost all their money in shaky stock deals.
▪ The Nottinghamshire opening partnership of left handers kept up the pressure on a shaky Worcestershire attack.
▪ When she saw where I was sitting she pushed her hands in her coat pockets and ambled over on her shaky heels.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shaky

Shaky \Shak"y\, a. [Compar. Shakier; superl. Shakiest.]

  1. Shaking or trembling; as, a shaky spot in a marsh; a shaky hand.
    --Thackeray.

  2. Full of shakes or cracks; cracked; as, shaky timber.
    --Gwilt.

  3. Easily shaken; tottering; unsound; as, a shaky constitution; shaky business credit. [Colloq.]

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
shaky

1840, of handwriting; 1841 of persons, horses, and credit; 1850 of structures; from shake (v.) + -y (2). General sense of "uncertain, of questionable integrity" is from 1834. Earliest of trees or logs, "split, having fissures" (1808). Related: Shakily; shakiness.

Wiktionary
shaky

a. 1 shake or tremble. 2 nervous; anxious.

WordNet
shaky
  1. adj. inclined to shake as from weakness or defect; "a rickety table"; "a wobbly chair with shaky legs"; "the ladder felt a little wobbly"; "the bridge still stands though one of the arches is wonky" [syn: rickety, wobbly, wonky]

  2. vibrating slightly and irregularly; as e.g. with fear or cold or like the leaves of an aspen in a breeze; "a quaking bog"; "the quaking child asked for more"; "quivering leaves of a poplar tree"; "with shaking knees"; "seemed shaky on her feet"; "sparkling light from the shivering crystals of the chandelier"; "trembling hands" [syn: quaking, quivering, shaking, shivering, trembling]

  3. not secure; beset with difficulties; "a shaky marriage" [syn: precarious]

  4. [also: shakiest, shakier]

Wikipedia
Shaky (disambiguation)

Shaky or Shakey may refer to:

Shaky (album)

Shaky is an album released by Shakin' Stevens in 1981. Released at the peak of his popularity, Shaky was the first and, to date, only UK number 1 album for Shakin' Stevens. The album features three top ten singles, most notably Green Door, which enjoyed a month at number one during the summer of 1981. Despite Shaky's reputation as a rock and roll cover artist, the album contained five of his own compositions as well as the original song "You Drive Me Crazy", which spent four weeks at number two in the UK singles chart in the spring of 1981. A cover of "It's Raining", released in the autumn, also managed to reach the top ten in the UK.

Produced by Stuart Colman, the album retained most of the musicians from Shaky's previous album, notably Mickey Gee, BJ Cole and Geraint Watkins, and was again recorded at the Eden Studios in Chiswick.

The album was issued in Australia under the title Green Door with a slightly different track listing where it was also released on CD in the early 1990s. In Europe, it was only officially released on CD for the first time in 2009 as part of '' The Epic Masters box set.

Usage examples of "shaky".

Rurik cocked his head to the side, and his mischievous eyes skimmed over her body with a boldness that made Maire squirm uncomfortably on her already shaky perch.

Jennifer asked, stepping into a shaky elevator car, watching as Lo Manto pressed the button for the sixth floor.

McCoy, accompanied by a shaky Maslin, joined the rest of the landing party.

Worse yet, other caves with shaky foundations were blown shut to prevent human injury or death--destroying petroglyphs, as well as bats.

Finally he took a shaky breath, swiped his sleeve over his eyes, and began sorting faded stereographs from a time before humanity split atoms, walked on the moon, and died in the bloody, anonymous mire of special operations.

Willard Whiskin spoke with shaky emotion as his family helped him toward the stairs.

She stepped toward Betta on shaky legs, a gurgle still flowing from her bloody throat.

She scampered off between the rows of cabins, long, slender legs flying in a shaky gait that looked as though she was perpetually about to lose her balance.

While the Hoka at the switchboard in far-off Mixumaxu routed his beam, he licked dry lips and ran a shaky finger under his collar.

It had been over the possession of a landing net and they had begun to grapple inside the shaky building, in the dry, smelly dimness, and then tumbled out on to the porch, demolishing one of the door jambs as they did so.

Her knees were weak, but Laris could not blame her shaky legs and vague vertigo on the elevator.

When the Heer Marais rose, I, being an observant youth, noted that Monsieur Leblanc took the opportunity to stretch out a rather shaky hand and fill up his coffee cup out of a black bottle, which from the smell I judged to contain peach brandy.

We can never be sure in advance which rain forest plant or animal will turn out to be the one that cures a terrible disease, and our scientific foundations for choosing which languages to protect are far shakier than those provided for snail-darters and louseworts by the biological sciences.

Very soon Chara Nandi, followed by good wishes and hopes for a speedy return, left the helicopter, stepping wearily on her shaky legs.

A rough and shaky bridge, made of the outsides of pines laid upon some unsecured logs, crossed the river.