Shakey or shaky?
shakey is an adjective meaning “Alternative spelling of shaky”; shaky is an adjective meaning “Shaking or trembling”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) shaky is about 16 times as common as shakey.
What is the difference between shakey and shaky?
| shakey | shaky | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | Alternative spelling of shaky | Shaking or trembling Nervous, anxious |
| Example | none recorded | a shaky spot in a marsh |
| Forms | none | shakier, shakiest |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈʃeɪki/ |
| In writing | about once in every 6 million words | 2.8 times per million words |
Sources: shakey and shaky in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of shakey and shaky
shakey
- 1
Alternative spelling of shaky
shaky
- 1
Shaking or trembling
a shaky spot in a marsh
- 2
Nervous, anxious
He’s a nice guy but when he talks to me, he acts shaky
- 3
Full of shakes or cracks; cracked
shaky timber
- 4
Easily shaken; tottering; unsound
a shaky constitution
- 5
Wavering; undecided
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, shakey or shaky?
shakey appears about once in every 6 million words; shaky 2.8 times per million words.
shakey about once in every 6 million wordsshaky 2.8 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search shakey vs shaky?
“shakey vs shaky” is searched about 50 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“shaky vs shakey”, “shakey or shaky”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.