wonky
adjective (mostly British)

(1) shaky, weak or unsatisfactory:

One of the legs on this chair is a bit wonky.
He may have to stop playing cricket because of his wonky knee.
The jury system may be a bit wonky but nobody's ever thought of anything better.

(2) not straight or level:

A wonky fence
A wonky picture
I don't enjoy films with wonky camera angles

(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)


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WORD ORIGIN

Probably an alteration of the dialectal wanky, alteration of wankle, from Middle English wankel and from Old English wancol, meaning unsteady. Likely related to the German "wankel."

Wonky is a great British word and when combined with "a bit" (Excuse me, but your necktie is a bit wonky), it's the essence of British understatement and humour.

Almost anything that doesn't work well can be described as wonky.

For instance, many of us have struggled with supermarket shopping trolley with wonky wheels. A German manufacturer found a way to turn that frustration into opportunity.

The company created a product that gives shoppers a more intense physical workout by increasing the resistance on a large wheel mounted between the two rear wheels of the trolley. By adding heart rate sensors on the handlebar, the shopper can see how many calories are being burned as they head for the chocolate shelves.

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SYNONYMS

(unstable)
broken, broken-down, decrepit, derelict, dilapidated, feeble, flimsy, fragile, frail, imperfect, infirm, insecure, precarious, ramshackle, rattletrap, rocky, shaky, tottery, tumble-down, unsteady, wavering, weak, wobbly

(crooked, uneven)
askance, askew, cockeyed, contorted, deformed, knurly, lopsided, meandering, misshapen, not straight, oblique, off-balance, screwy, off-kilter, skewed, slanted, tilted, topsy-turvy, twisted, unlevel, warped

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Practice OWAD in a conversation:

"Hey Jim, your tie is a little bit WONKY."