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Shaky   /ʃˈeɪki/   Listen
Shaky

adjective
(compar. shakier; superl. shakiest)
1.
Inclined to shake as from weakness or defect.  Synonyms: rickety, wobbly, wonky.  "A wobbly chair with shaky legs" , "The ladder felt a little wobbly" , "The bridge still stands though one of the arches is wonky"
2.
Vibrating slightly and irregularly; as e.g. with fear or cold or like the leaves of an aspen in a breeze.  Synonyms: shivering, trembling.  "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"
3.
Not secure; beset with difficulties.  Synonym: precarious.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Shaky" Quotes from Famous Books



... beginning, "baker, maker, poker, broker, quaker, shaker" and even the boys rattled these off, grinning the while in a most sheepish fashion at their elder brothers or their women-folk, who beamed in pride upon them until such lists as "food, soup, meat, bread, dough, butter" bowled over the more shaky ones. ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... know better presently, for here we are," Uncle Harry said gently; and in a few minutes more they were all in a shabby, shaky, but roomy old carriage, driving ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... the supposition that she must have climbed over a tolerably difficult obstacle to enter the yard, let alone the necessity—by no means easy to a woman—of descending into the disused cellar by means of a shaky and ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... edge of the forest I mounted the sentinel's stage, just in time to see the turtles retreating to the water on the opposite side of the sand-bank, after having laid their eggs. The sight was well worth the trouble of ascending the shaky ladder. They were about a mile off, but the surface of the sands was blackened with the multitudes which were waddling towards the river; the margin of the praia was rather steep, and they all seemed to tumble head first down the declivity into ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... investigate and take action, which resulted in the putting of the old hospital in habitable shape. This, though a good work, did not enhance the Editor's popularity with the whites who thought him too high strung, bold and saucy. And the colored people who appreciated his pluck felt a little shaky over his many tilts with editors of the white papers. The brave little man did not last very long however—the end came apace: Sitting in his office one evening in August reading a New York paper, his eyes fell upon a clipping from a Georgia paper from the pen of a famous Georgia white woman, ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... weave stories about its musty squalor. He crossed the road to make a nearer inspection; and as he stood gazing at the dishonoured thresholds, at the stained and cracked boarding of the blind windows, at the rusty paling and the broken gates, there sounded from somewhere near a thin, shaky strain of music, the notes of a concertina played with uncertain hand. The sound seemed to come from within the houses, yet how could that be? Assuredly no one lived under these crazy roofs. The musician was playing 'Home, Sweet Home,' and as Goldthorpe listened ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... testify. As the coroner left the room, I tried to read in his face the nature of his testimony, but it was inscrutable. Pickering was out in less than ten minutes, and then Wicks was called. His legs seemed a bit shaky as he started for the door and he gave me a parting look, ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... evening they spent, dining on chicken and palm-oil chop, rice pudding and sweet potatoes. Hamilton sang, "Who wouldn't be a soldier in the Army?" and—by request—in his shaky falsetto baritone, "My heart is in the Highlands"; and Lieut. Tibbetts gave a lifelike imitation of Frank Tinney, which convulsed, not alone his superior officer, but some two-and-forty men of the Houssas who were ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... least, there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I known ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... most ardent admirers; and when he saw her coming that noon he made as straight for her as his very shaky two-year-old legs would allow. Of course he tumbled down and scratched his snubby little nose; and of course Patricia stopped to pet and comfort him, carrying him back to the house. "Mrs. Dixon," she called from the gate, ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott

... H. & P. A. had a monopoly of that territory. Now, as Mr. Bartholomew intimated, it was threatened with such rivalry from another railroad and other capitalists, that the H. & P. A. was being looked upon in the financial market as a shaky investment. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... one on a mahogany desk near at hand and he toppled to the edge of the chair that stood before it. He took down the receiver in a shaky hand, calling Long Distance. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... say," she began in shaky tones, "if you say that this woman of yours is mad—at all events I have nothing to do with her insane fancies. Kindly take these three letters, Lef Nicolaievitch, and throw them back to her, from me. And if she dares," cried Aglaya suddenly, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... next day he was able to see Mr Garrett. When in health Mr Garrett was a cheerful and pleasant-looking young man. Now he was a very white and shaky being, propped up in an arm-chair by the fire, and inclined to shiver and keep an eye on the door. If however, there were visitors whom he was not prepared to welcome, Mr Eldred was not among them. 'It really is I who owe you an apology, and I was despairing ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... misty summer morning we packed ourselves and our luggage into a large rowing-boat. The big steamer, Lady of the Lake, being, as usual, stuck on a rock, about forty miles out, we were towed behind a barge by a shaky-looking little tug. Glad were we to have room to move about a little, and after the crowded and cramping waggon the boat ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... in earnest was plain to be seen: his voice was shaky, and his hand, I noticed, was shaky, too, when he held it out entreating us to ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp

... politics, the world, and those things. He is dull at trade—indeed, it is the common remark that "Everybody cheats Chalmerson." He came to the party the other evening and brought his guitar. They wouldn't have him for a tenor in the opera, certainly, for he is shaky in his upper notes; but if his simple melodies didn't gush straight from the heart! why, even my trained eyes were wet! And although some of the girls giggled, and some of the men seemed to pity him, I could not help fancying that poor Chalmerson ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... this job," Guy said, savagely, as he gazed pityingly upon the shaky old creature beside him. ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... Frenchman has the true instinct of the dramatist; business he rightly considers as only an entr'acte in life; the serious thing is the scene de theatre, wherever it takes place. Therefore it was that the black, shaky-looking houses, leaning over the quays, were now populous with frowsy heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from the adjacent sloops and tug-boats formed an outer circle about the closer ring made by the competitors for our favors, while the loungers ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... delicto they would have put in the plea that fraudulent mediums so frequently offer to-day—"An evil spirit took possession of me." As it was, the superstition of the times—and doubtless the rats and shaky timbers of Mompesson House did their part—was their constant and unfailing support. Everything that happened would be magnified and distorted by the witnesses, either at the moment or in retrospect, until in the end the Rev. Mr. Glanvill, recording honestly enough what he himself ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce

... bit, he sed: 'Several uf our best payin' members sell whiskey wholesale, they're agin dram drinkin' but ef ye preach agin whiskey right away it mought make 'em mad, so I wouldn't say anythin' agin whiskey in yer fust sermun nex' Sunday.' The preacher began to git a little shaky but he thanked the man. A little later anuther member called. When 'bout tu leave he sed: 'Parson, ye preach yer fust sermon Sunday; I want ye to start right. We hed a good many dances through the winter, and our peepul is very fond uf dancin'. Thur's two ur three big dances to kum off ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... Pretty good proof that even Rinehart hadn't known it was a suicide. If Carl had brought back evidence of murder, Dan would win, McKenzie thought. But evidence of suicide—it was shaky. Walt Rinehart has ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... at side of a seedy house in a shabby street, slimy and straw-bestrewn. Yard is paved with lumpy, irregular cobbles, and some sooty and shaky-looking sheds stand at the bottom thereof. Enter together, Clerical Gent ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various

... time when it seems to office persons that the day's work never will end, even by a miracle, Mr. Wrenn was shaky about his duty to the firm. He was more so after an electrical interview with the manager, who spent a few minutes, which he happened to have free, in roaring "I want to know why" at Mr. Wrenn. There was no particular "why" that he wanted to know; he was merely getting scientific ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... disputes which, being purely American, could not possibly be settled by European intervention in any shape or form? On this question of the Monroe Doctrine, the security and utility of the whole League rested.... It was rumoured that it was the shaky attitude of the League on this point that was responsible for its ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... went on and Godfrey grew, not better, but worse, till at last he knew that he was dying, and rejoiced to die. One evening a letter was brought to him. It was from Madame Riennes, written in a shaky ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... name. He was an old man, and very shaky on his pins. His hand trembled as with a palsy, especially noticeable when he poured his whiskey, though I never knew him to spill a drop. He had been twenty-eight years in Melanesia, ranging from ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... Columbus in the same sort of horrible train—shaky, hot, and stopping outside before jerking into the stations. Upon our arrival, a stranger came up to us on the platform and said he hoped we would let him take us and our luggage to any place we liked; that he had loved my book and was going ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith

... out of this, Carl," he kept saying, "and I've got something right here in my pocket I'm meaning to give back to you. I was getting shaky about it anyhow; but if you help me now you're a-goin' to have ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... As however, I have heard this statement made on every occasion of his appearance in public, I am disposed to think it was much what it usually is—the bearing of a good-natured, not over-wise, and somewhat shaky old man. In reply to the address, he stated that "if it was the will of God that chastisement should be inflicted upon his Church, he, as His vicar, however unworthy, must taste of the chalice;" and that, "as becomes all Christians, knowing that though we cannot penetrate the ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... great, weather-beaten building, from whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into the summer air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped and caught her breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs; then they followed Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. Here some elderly women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over great piles of herbs in silence—the silence, apparently, of peace and meditation. Two of them were dressed like world's people, but the others ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... at her, he spoke, his voice shaky, wholly unfamiliar. "You had better go. I—I am not safe. This damned fever has got ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell

... to tell a good story of a shaky village knight of the razor who gashed the minister's cheek. "John, John!" cried the reverend sufferer, "it's a dreadful thing that drink!" "'Deed it is, sir," mildly assented John, "it makes the ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews

... lies the broken tank, the normal construction of El-Islam's flourishing days. It is a square of thirty-two metres, whose faces and angles do not front the cardinal points. At each corner a flight of steps has been; two have almost disappeared, and the others are very shaky. The floor, originally stone-paved, is now a sheet of hard silt, growing trees and bush: dense Tanzub-clumps (Sodada decidua), with edible red berries, sheltering a couple of birds'-nests, suggested a comparison between the present and the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... had given up keeping ducks . . . "because they were such untidy birds". . . and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of correction for setting hens. Although scrupulously whitewashed it had become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... broken through which the guard jumped out. We trembled for our luggage, which was all there. The lakes and gaily coloured hills that elsewhere I should admire, make our railroad so dangerous that we have to creep along, sometimes over long spidery wooden bridges, and again on most shaky and uncertain looking embankments, and round sharp corners; every now and then we stop for no apparent reason, and then all rush to the platform of our car to see what is the matter. Once a party of the railway officials got out and ran back; we thought some of our luggage had ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh

... was twenty-one, he and Cyd had saved a considerable sum of money; and the Isabel having become rather shaky from old age, they proposed to procure another boat, and establish themselves at the city. With the aid of Mr. Presby, they built a yacht of forty tons, which was called the "Lily." It was a beautiful little vessel, and soon became very popular among people devoted to the sea. They were very ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... and greeted us with a shaky hand. He was a thin, spectacled man, with a pendulous nose and cheeks disfigured by a purplish cutaneous disorder (which his wife, later on, attributed to his having slept between damp sheets while the honoured guest of a nobleman, whose name ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... find that the men who control circumstances, as it is called, are those who have learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, and have the nerve to turn them to account at the happy instant. Mr. Lincoln's perilous task has been to carry a rather shaky raft through the rapids, making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity, and the country is to be congratulated that he did not think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to assure himself with his setting-pole where ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... is happening to us," contended Eph Somers, somewhat shaky in his tones. "It's just thinking what might happen—if we were to strike a water-logged old hull of some ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham

... brother half ran to her, white and panting, both hands outstretched: and deserting Lenox, she flew to him, anathematising her own folly in a rapid flow of French. "Take me to my tent now," she concluded, linking her arm in his. "I still feel idiotically shaky, and I am certainly no loss to my side!—Mr Bathurst"—she turned in Jeff's direction—"please forgive me. I promise I'll never ask you to lend me a polo ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... Ohio, to Singapore, Malaya, and back again. There were permanent trouble spots at various places where practically anything was likely to happen at any instant. The people of every nation were jumpy. There was constant pressure on governments and on political parties so that all governments looked shaky and all parties helpless. Nobody could look forward to a peaceful old age, and most hardly hoped to reach middle age. The arrival of an object from outer space was nicely calculated to blow the ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... man, sir, when he's thinking of higher things, and with his hand 'most too shaky ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and who comes down on the key-board as though it was his enemy; the famous song from Figaro—encored; the madrigal, 'Down in a Flowery Vale'—the latter always a sure card; a duet from Semiramide, by two young ladies—rather shaky; solo on the clarionet, by a gentleman who makes the instrument sound like a fiddle—great applause; 'In manly Worth,' by an oratorio tenor; the overture to Masaniello, by the band; concerto (posthumous, Beethoven), by a stern classical man—audience yawn; pot pourri, by a romantic practitioner—audience ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door," said Mr. Adams, in a shaky voice. "My God! Spencer, what shall we do? That child—she can't stand it long in there. There isn't enough air, and, besides, she'll go into ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... week I was better but still shaky. I started pestering the M.O. to tag me for Blighty. He wouldn't, so I sprung the same proposition on him that I had on the doctor at the base,—to send me back to duty if he couldn't send me to England. The brute took me at my word ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... the story all right," he groaned. "I don't know whether it's that ice-water or the drink, but my arms are so shaky I can't hit ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... him. And then to hear of this arrest! They would be charging the man to-day. He could go and see the poor creature accused of the murder he himself had committed! And he laughed. Go and see how likely it was that they might hang a fellow-man in place of himself? He dressed, but too shaky to shave himself, went out to a barber's shop. While there he read the news which Keith had seen. In this paper the name of the arrested man was given: "John Evan, no address." To be brought up on the charge at Bow Street. Yes! He must go. Once, twice, three times he walked past the entrance ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... to time to know if he were pursued. Away up the head of the little branch were the Shoshones, bleak, forbidding; no enemies were there, and the Park was beyond it all—on, on he must go. But as he climbed with shaky limbs, and short uncertain steps, the west wind brought the odor of Death Gulch, that fearful little valley where everything was dead, where the very air was deadly. It used to disgust him and drive him away, but now Wahb ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... heard of her. It had seemed so improbable that Devai could get her, that she had not written to us to ask us to pray her through the battle, as she usually does. The sound of the bullock-bells' jingle one moonlight night woke us to welcome the baby. She had travelled fifty miles in the shaky bullock-cart, and she was only a few days old; but she seemed healthy, and we had no fears. "Ah, the Lord our God gave her to me, or never could I have got her! Her mother had determined to give her to the Temple; ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... right, Tim. It ... it's all right. I had a thought there that kind of shook me." He relaxed with a shaky laugh, relief flooding his face once more with color. "What a crazy thought! I could have sworn ... well, never mind. But it shakes a man to learn what tricks his own mind can play on him, all in ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan

... the seemingly unreasonable acts of the government. If an intendant increased the taxes on a village, the ignorant inhabitants blamed it upon official "graft" or favoritism. Or, if hard times prevailed, or if a shaky bridge broke down, the villagers were prone in any case to find fault with the government, for the more mysterious and powerful the government was, the more likely was it to bear the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... articles are positively known to be late translations of French-English originals, and the others are very uncertain. You really cannot found any safe literary generalisations on so very small a basis of such very shaky matter. In fact, Mr Arnold's argument for the presence of "Celtic magic," &c., in Celtic poetry comes to something like this. "There is a quality of magic in Shakespeare, Keats, &c.; this magic must be Celtic: therefore it must be in Celtic poetry." ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... dripping of the rain from the roof of the cottage, and, in the distance, the low sighing note of the sea. The silence was emphasized by the fact that for the last week Antony had had the hum of traffic in his ears, and had but this moment come from the noise of trains and the rattle of a shaky dog-cart. ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... crossing the swaying corridor, entered the state-room opposite. Miss Wilming was there, reading a novel, an enormous bunch of roses, a box of bonbons, and a tiny kitten on the table before her. The kitten was so young that it was shaky on its legs, and it wore very wide eyes and a ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... vitality in the "whom" to carry it over such little difficulties as a "me" can compass without a thought. The proportion "I : me he : him who : whom" is logically and historically sound, but psychologically shaky. "Whom did you see?" is correct, but there is something ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... "Thank'ee, rather shaky. I must ha' bin pretty nigh finished that night; but I feel as if I'd be all taught and ready for sea in ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... backwards and forwards till the blade cut through the rope at my wrist; then, in two more minutes, we were free. Then we felt about, and found that the boarding between us and the main hold was old and shaky, and, with the aid of the knife and of our three shoulders, we made a shift at last to wrench one of ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... out a note-book and made a shaky sketch of a pompous, drunken-looking house with a huge door, on which were two brass plates, side by side, ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... terror. It has become a blubbering fish. And the author of its crimes is no diabolical triton, but a semi-imbecile old dotard, round whom his evil—but terrified—brood have clustered; they fawning on him in terror, he fondling them in shaky, decrepit fondness. Note the flaccid paunch, the withered top, and the foolish, hysterical face. How the full-dress cocked ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... family and goods as they make 'em: a philanthropic, idealist lot, that yearns for the people, and will be the first to be kicked downstairs when the people gets its own. However, they aren't all quite happy in their minds. Frank Leven there, as Benson says, is decidedly shaky. He is the member for the Maxwells' division—Maxwell, of course, put him in. He has a house there, I believe, and he married Lady Maxwell's great friend, Miss Macdonald—an ambitious little party, they say, who simply insisted on his going into Parliament. Oh, then, Bennett is there—do you ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... proved himself an invaluable ally of the Dutchman in fixing up the charges. I don't believe he would manufacture a story out of whole cloth, but once his mind was set in a certain direction he could build up a good one on very shaky foundations. Perhaps he had an animus against these bumptious, undeferential, overcritical Americans, and thought it was time to give one of them a lesson. Perhaps he was tired of trapping ordinary garden variety spies of the Belgian brand. It would ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... a total surprise to the Simpson family, and when the Maynards knocked vigorously at the shaky old door, half a dozen little faces looked ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... through the first act, Mr. Vandeford reading from two manuscripts and reconciling Mr. Howard's shaky, pen annotations, Mr. Rooney's blue-pencil, action directions, and Miss Adair's original wanderings from the point with many brilliant ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... horses to the driver that he might be free to enjoy the scenery. M. Souverain remarked that if the Highlanders were a strong race, their horses hardly deserved the same epithet; and indeed the pair harnessed to our carriage appeared very lean and somewhat shaky, but the driver affirmed that they were capital for hill-work, though he would not swear to their swiftness, and as we did not want to go fast, it was again "all right" from M. Souverain when the explanation had been translated ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... red-faced member, large and loose and somewhat limber (And though his creed was shaky, he the name of Bishop bore), Said that if he lived forever, he should forget, ah! never, The Radicals so clever, in Boston by the shore; But a bad gold in his 'ead bust stop his saying bore, And we ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... will stand while they want it," Festing answered with an impatient look. "Long before it gets shaky they'll ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... the eyes of both Mr. Beasley and his son, as in shaky voices they endeavored to thank ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... felt a loss of power to keep your equilibrium? You open your eyes to their widest. Nothing is to be seen. You have no longer a sense of perpendicularity. You sway this way and that, groping for something to keep you from falling. And that is just what happened to Bagg. He was at best shaky on his legs in a boat; and now, in darkness and fear, his whole mind was fixed on finding something to grasp with ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... a bit shaky in his spelling, and perhaps he couldn't lick the world in Latin, but his heart was always in exploring, and the way he knew geography, especially the part of it they call the "Unknown," the Arctic, and the Antarctic, and what Charcot had done there, and Biscoe and Bellamy and D'Urville and Greely ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... final heave, he had Jack out of his perilous position. He had pulled him up from the mouth of the crater, and the thick fur coat Jack wore had prevented the sharp rocks from injuring him. In another moment he stood beside Mark, a trifle weak and shaky from his ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... in itself, but it was not the strangest thing about this letter. The strangest thing was a word written in a shaky cramped hand on the back of the sheet: the letters ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... Mrs. Fleming in a shaky voice, "if you knew what I suffered when I saw you creeping along the triforium you couldn't speak so lightly. It isn't right to risk ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... scribbled on the back of a sheet of instructions printed in German script the few words he could summon strength to write. The scrap of paper was torn and smudgy and a thumb-print in blood was impressed on one corner. Each word was more shaky and labored than the preceding one, as if each had been traced only by a supreme effort. On it was written in German, "Good-bye, Mother and Father. My leg is crushed. The French are very kind and...." A foot-note had been added by some ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... up. The pace was too hard for her. She couldn't face that highest rock; the one below had made her feel cold and queer and shaky as she stood on it. Besides, why was she trying, for the first time in her life, to go Nan's pace, which had always been, and was now more than ever before, too hot and mettlesome for her? She didn't ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... eyes of the old man turned lovingly on her for a moment, his lips trembled and his voice was suspiciously shaky as ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... fugitives rode through the cobbled streets of Kunitz. Priscilla was very shaky on a bicycle, and so was Fritzing. Some years before this, when it had been the fashion, she had bicycled every day in the grand ducal park on the other side of the town. Then, tired of it, she had given it up; ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... market receive more consideration, and a great deal more money, than an average European prince;—and yet the poor dry-rotted unfortunate whose decadence we are tracing is like a leper in the scattering effects which he produces during his shaky promenade. He is indeed alone in the world, and brandy or gin is his only counsellor and comforter. As to character, the last rag of that goes when the first sign of indolence is seen; the watchers have eyes like cats, and the self-restrained ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... talk like that, sir," said Hutchings in a shaky voice. "But I know what people are saying. It's enough to make ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson

... handwriting from that on the paper. The red-ink note about the avenger of the tortoise is in a crude, large, clumsy, untaught style of writing. This is small, neat, and well formed—except that it is a trifle shaky, probably because of the ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... added with a sigh, "it's a rich man I'd have been this day if that ship had only kep' afloat a few hours longer. Well, well, I needn't grumble, when me own comrades, that thought it so safe in the Blankow Bank, are about as badly off as me. When was it they began to suspec' the bank was shaky?" ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... down there," he replied, forgetful of the gingerbread shop with the shaky little bell inside the door, the buttered gingerbread on the upper shelf for three cents and that without on the lower for two. She gathered her hopes now about Webb's Drugstore, where her grandfather sometimes stopped for a talk, and bought her rock candy, Gibraltars or blackjacks. ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... recognised my lost lance-jack, very pale and shaky, a little thinner than usual, and with a hint of that gleam of sniper-madness which I have noticed before in the jumpy, unsteady eyes ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... Pink with me," she said to herself. "I'll empty all the things out of my little work-basket, and my darling Pink can sleep in it quite snugly, and she'll be great company to me, for I cannot help feeling very shaky, and I do start so when I see any one the least like Mr. Dove in the distance. I mustn't think about being frightened now—this is the least I could do, and if I'm terrified all over I must go ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... at the quality of this, taking the shaky old hand in hers with a certainty of affection returned. She went on, "This is a regular descent on you, Cousin Hetty. I've come to show you off, you and the house and the garden. This is Mr. Welles who has settled next door to us, you know, and this is Mr. Marsh who is visiting him for a ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... sign—for us," said the other general. "It's easy enough to sneer at praying men, but just you remember Cromwell. I'm a little shaky on my history, but I've an impression that when Cromwell, the Ironsides, old Praise-God-Barebones, and the rest knelt, said a few words to their God, sang a little and advanced with their pikes, they went wherever they intended to go ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... had said that the corner stone of the dormitory was shaky, the amazement would not have been so great in some quarters; and the story was not believed until they had it from Joe himself. Then amazement changed to grief. Not to have Joe Pepper along, was to do away with ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... Squire in a shaky voice, "we had aa better gang awa oot o' the room till the meetin's owre." So the three men withdrew to the hall ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... we had excellent examples of all these things. In the first of them we were treated to a somewhat belated utterance in opposition to Vitalism. Its arguments were mostly based upon what even to the tyro in chemistry seemed to be rather shaky foundations. Such indeed they proved to be, since the deductions drawn from the behaviour of colloids and from Leduc's pretty toys were promptly disclaimed by leading chemists in the course of the few days after the delivery ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... knowing some of those people," Roy confided to Allen, as they leaned against the shaky, old rail. "There's certainly nothing ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... certainly have put them down as being all the signatures of one person. The variations are very slight. The later signatures are a little stiffer, a little more shaky and indistinct, and the B's and k's are both appreciably different from those in the earlier ones. But there is another fact which emerges when the whole series is seen together, and it is so striking and significant a fact, that I am astonished ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... to it. But don't you remain. I'm feeling shaky, but I shan't mind a bit if you'll let Simon remain ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking

... Vovo began to button his collar, readjust his clothes. "Well, shall we emerge and let the quaking multitudes know that once again we have made a shaky agreement? One that will last ...
— Summit • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... got the 'lectric-cars finished down our way. We hadn't been on 'em, neither of us. Jennie an' Frank didn't seem ter want us to. They said they was shaky an' noisy an' would tire us all out. But yesterday, when the folks was gone, Hezekiah an' me got ter talkin' an' thinkin' how all these years we hadn't never had that honeymoon trip, an' how by an' by we'd be ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... me lay a finger on you," he said in an altered tone, "I don't see how I can be any use. But if you will condescend to use me as a prop, I'll put you up on the mare, and walk beside you; then you can hold on to me if you feel shaky. We are not far off now, and the boy can take my pony on. Will that ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... in the jail at Las Animas last summer for stealing horses. The old jail was very shaky, and while it was being made more secure, he and another man—a wife murderer—were brought to the guardhouse at this post. They finally took them back, and Oliver promptly made his escape, and the sheriff had actually been afraid to re-arrest him. We have all begged Faye to get out ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... stepping out into the hall, closed it softly after her. She brushed her hand across her eyes, for there were tears in them, and her feet felt shaky as she started up ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler

... up, too. The lank, shaky machine was lifted up and wheeled out of the way, and then the fallen rider, being assisted, got up slowly and stood rubbing his arm. No serious injury seemed to be done to the man, and the couple presently turned their attention to the machine by the roadside. They were not in cycling clothes ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... from being cremated," said Carpenter with a shaky laugh. "I knew that our speed would increase as soon as we got clear of the layer but it caught me by surprise just the same. I had no idea how great the holding effect of the stuff was. Well, First Mortgage, the road to space is open for us. May ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... were searching the far distance, my companion gave a sudden scream, and pointed—at a human head protruding from the snow. He recognised the schoolmaster. We dug him out of the hard snow and found in his pocket a paper on which a shaky hand had written in pencil: "Christmas Day. At sunset I beheld the sea and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... thing that registered. We came to that same building Leroy and I had entered earlier—the one with the three eyes in it. Well, we were a little shaky about going in there, but Tweel twittered and trilled and kept saying, 'Yes, yes, yes!' so we followed him, staring nervously about for the thing that had watched us. However, that hall was just like the others, ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... have a good brain, but what's the use of it if you have never mastered the very rudiments of knowledge? There—never mind about knowledge . . . the children will get that at school, but, you know, you are very shaky on the moral side too! You sometimes use such language that ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov



Words linked to "Shaky" :   trembling, insecure, unstable, unsteady, shakiness, shake, unsafe



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