as in clumsy
hastily or roughly constructed
my jerry-built wine racks may not look pretty, but they get the job done
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for jerry-built
Adjective
-
Isabel, sitting in a driving-range stall, is nearly hit with a ball when a clumsy golfer clangs it off a metal railing.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
4 Feb. 2026 -
The results are often enervating though sometimes clumsy.—
Eli Enis,
Pitchfork,
3 Feb. 2026
Verb
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The summit’s overall theme was the breakdown of American healthcare and how the industry needs to be disrupted and rebuilt from the ground up.—
Annie Levin,
Washington Post,
10 Feb. 2026
-
Kız Kulesi appears to have been dismantled and rebuilt.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 Feb. 2026
Verb
-
However, a new study has reconstructed a three-dimensional picture of the sun’s internal magnetic field using decades of satellite data.—
Rupendra Brahambhatt,
Interesting Engineering,
1 Feb. 2026
-
With radiation detectors lining the insides of those tanks, the properties of the incoming particles can be reconstructed.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
30 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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For much of 2025, their doldrums felt much worse than the typical rough patch that parties endure after bad election defeats.—
Mark Leibovich,
The Atlantic,
11 Feb. 2026
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Unfortunately, peel-and-stick tiles will not hold up well on rough walls and floors or uneven surfaces.—
Cori Sears,
The Spruce,
11 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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To do so would be rude, politically perilous, insulting to our biggest trade partner and just plain weird.—
Gustavo Arellano,
Los Angeles Times,
6 Feb. 2026
-
The interactions would last 30 seconds, maybe, and no one was rude.—
Matt Gelb,
New York Times,
4 Feb. 2026
Verb
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A lot of companies are still trying to retrofit AI into existing workflows, while the genuine visionaries are redesigning entire workflows with AI as the foundation.—
Mark Minevich,
Forbes.com,
30 Jan. 2026
-
Almost every gallery and store had wheelchair entry, retrofitted into eighteenth-century infrastructure in ways that would trigger decades-long preservation battles back in the UK.—
Sophie Morgan,
Condé Nast Traveler,
28 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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Thus, as a vision of our transportation system in 2050, this plan is flawed due to placing too much emphasis on freeway expansion and insufficient resources on public transit.—
Chris Roberts,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
6 Feb. 2026
-
Then their postseason schedule road was made easier by facing three flawed offensive units.—
Hank Gola,
New York Daily News,
6 Feb. 2026
Verb
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Vibration testing is a ground test devised to put an aircraft through its paces without taking to the skies.—
Chris Young,
Interesting Engineering,
11 Feb. 2026
-
The show features 52 images from the museum’s collection dating from 1860 to 1940, all of which were devised using collage or montage.—
Lianne Kolirin,
CNN Money,
5 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Jerry-built.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/jerry-built. Accessed 14 Feb. 2026.
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