shipwrecky

comparative more shipwrecky · superlative most shipwrecky

1. Characteristic of a shipwreck.

   "I was only joking. We've escaped from a burning vessel, you know, and every one else is either burned or drowned. We've provisions for a month, if we don't eat too much, and we're in the South Sea Islands. South Sea Islands sound nice and shipwrecky, don't you think so?"

   1896, Elizabeth Westyn Timlow, “Chapter VI”, in Cricket at the Seashore, Estes and Lauriat

2. figurativelyWeak, feeble; shaky.

   So there I was, standing by the roadside in pitch darkness with my belongings and shipwrecky knees.

   2007, Riaan Manser, Around Africa on My Bicycle, Jonathan Ball Publishers, →ISBN, page 301

   1 more example

   But down below he is not so good by any means — no spring from the loins, and feeblish, not to say shipwrecky, about the knees.

   1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days