tumbledown

• tumble-down

Deverbal from tumble down.

tumbledown (comparative more tumbledown, superlative most tumbledown)

1. In disrepair; poorly maintained.

   They lived in a tumbledown shack on the edge of the woods.

   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     The cab pulled up in front of a tumbledown cheap ‘villa’ in an unfinished cheap neighbourhood, — the whole place a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder.

   • 1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, page 19:

     Some distance north of both stations was a rather small and tumbledown shed for Great Central engines, and there was generally one or more goods tank engines outside it, painted black and lined out in red.

• See Thesaurus:ramshackle