wonky

From English dialectal wanky, alteration of Middle English wankel (“unstable, shaky”), from Old English wancol (“unstable”), from Proto-Germanic *wankulaz (“swaying, shaky, unstable”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwɔːŋ.kɪ/
• (US) enPR: wŏngʹkē, IPA^(key): /ˈwɑŋ.ki/, /ˈwɔŋ.ki/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒŋki

wonky (comparative wonkier, superlative wonkiest)

1. Lopsided, misaligned or off-centre.

   Synonyms: awry, lonkie, misaligned, skew-whiff

2. (chiefly Britain, Australia, New Zealand) Feeble, shaky or rickety.

   Synonym: rickety

   • 1932, Frank Richards, The Magnet: The Terror of the Form

     It seemed likely that he would need First Aid when those wonky steps yielded, at length, to the well-known law of gravitation.

3. (informal, computing, especially Usenet) Suffering from intermittent bugs.

   Synonyms: buggy, broken

4. (informal) Generally incorrect.

• wonky hole

wonky (uncountable)

1. (music) A subgenre of electronic music employing unstable rhythms, complex time signatures, and mid-range synths.
   • 2015, Jan Kyrre Berg O. Friis, ‎Robert P. Crease, Technoscience and Postphenomenology: The Manhattan Papers

     By the late 2000s, dubstep had splintered into numerous factions, from brostep to wonky to the evocative “purple,” […]

wonk +‎ -y

wonky (comparative wonkier, superlative wonkiest)

1. Technically worded, in the style of jargon.
   • 2009, Jesse Dale Holcomb, Faith, Science and Trust: Climate Change Framing Effects and Conservative Protestant Opinion

     Climate change is an issue that might lend itself more easily to thematic framing in the news, due to the often highly technical and wonky language required to explain it.

   • 2010, Michael Maslansky, Scott West, Gary DeMoss, David Saylor, The Language of Trust: Selling Ideas in a World of Skeptics

     McCain's message, while similar in content and equally as valid, is lost in the minutiae of “'high-risk' pools” and wonky jargon.

• y'know