A broken-backed book.    From Wordnet, Princeton University. 

But, thou broken-backed sheriff, evil mayst thou thrive!.    From Wordnik.com.  [Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race] Reference

In the background, the ferry lay broken-backed over a hill.    From Wordnik.com.  [Asimov's Science Fiction]

Our zereba outline was something like a broken-backed pyramid.    From Wordnik.com.  [Khartoum Campaign, 1898 or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan] Reference

The concept existed, in other words, but it was broken-backed.    From Wordnik.com.  [Literature without prefixes] Reference

By now the line of running men was writhing like a broken-backed snake.    From Wordnik.com.  [Conan the Relentless]

Iran is no broken-backed land enfeebled by decades of war and sanctions.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2008-07-01] Reference

After he has had time to force you into a marriage with your broken-backed old lover.    From Wordnik.com.  [Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter] Reference

It is a weak, almost broken-backed creature, with a most resentful and sudden temper.    From Wordnik.com.  [Last Leaves from Dunk Island] Reference

The shiny hardcover book hit the metal arm of the beach chair, then fell broken-backed onto the sand.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Season of the Machete]

People sat here and there in broken-backed kitchen chairs, sipping tea under the shade of bamboo and burlap.    From Wordnik.com.  [Pakistan’s Fatal Shore] Reference

But the devil has gotten into dreamwork, too: “jagged, broken-backed narratives” that reinforce our vices.    From Wordnik.com.  [Satan, Meet Norman] Reference

From mid-2003 to Rumsfeld's departure at the end of 2006, then, administration policy in Iraq was broken-backed.    From Wordnik.com.  [McNamara, Rumsfeld and the Fog of War] Reference

There was a box of copier paper under the table, and a broken-backed chair which creaked in complaint when sat upon.    From Wordnik.com.  [Fleshmarket Close]

The political scale of the Blair phenomenon is worth recalling even as it reaches this ugly, broken-backed conclusion.    From Wordnik.com.  [The great New Labour civil war] Reference

In the last stanza she lies broken-backed, embedded in the loam of a field as her clothes drift down all over the Midwest.    From Wordnik.com.  [Summer of Deliverance] Reference

 Charlotte's Web, which we'd been reading together at bedtime all that week, lay splayed broken-backed on the floor where she'd thrown it.    From Wordnik.com.  [Magnificent Pigs] Reference

The same is true of many other broken-backed stories in the Times and a host of other papers since, probably, the mid 1970s or early 1980s.    From Wordnik.com.  [Jay Rosen: When Dumb Articles Happen to Smart Newspapers] Reference

"You're not the only one that's broken-backed in the treasury.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Under Fire: the story of a squad] Reference

He drew a broken-backed chair to the table and set to business.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Rules of the Game] Reference

The bulky volume was handed up to him, broken-backed as is the way with.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Ebb-Tide] Reference

The conversation jumped from topic to topic in a broken-backed fashion.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Passage To India]

Think me an overwrought fool; a broken-backed corn-stalk, if you choose.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Great Amulet] Reference

Not one of its wriggling, broken-backed streets has handsome shops in an unbroken row.    From Wordnik.com.  [Put Yourself in His Place] Reference

“It seems almost a waste of time,” said Mr Lugg, drawing up a broken-backed chair.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mystery Mile]

The speaker indicated a broken-backed rocker encumbered with damp clothes, newspapers, and books.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Ne'er-Do-Well] Reference

When the broken-backed schoolmaster had finished his story, the old man with the wry-mouth thus began.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Complete] Reference

The British people, thrilled to see the end of a broken-backed Tory government, were gripped by euphoria.    From Wordnik.com.  [Home | Mail Online] Reference

Getting all three to match is like fitting a broken-backed camel through the eye of a needle in a haystack.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blazersedge] Reference

But for me it would have been the despicable, broken-backed, disjointed, inharmonious figure five hundred and fifty-four.    From Wordnik.com.  [Alarms and Discursions] Reference

The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Covey; Miss Kemp (a broken-backed woman) a sister of Mrs. Covey; William Hughes, cousin to.    From Wordnik.com.  [My Bondage and My Freedom] Reference

He took his seat in a broken-backed chair; drew forth a huge red bandanna handkerchief; wiped his forehead; and said quietly.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mohun, or, the Last Days of Lee] Reference

It has, however, a curious appearance, and a fleet of bawleys at anchor resembles nothing so much as a flock of broken-backed ducks.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Chapter of Adventures] Reference

On entering, the sultan beheld three mean-looking old men, one of whom was lame, the second broken-backed, and the third wry-mouthed.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Arabian Nights Entertainments - Complete] Reference