Word.ws English Dictionary

arsey

/ˈɑː(ɹ)si/

arsey adjective: unpleasant, especially in a sarcastic, grumpy or haughty manner.

Adjective

arsey (comparative more arsey, superlative most arsey)

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang) Unpleasant, especially in a sarcastic, grumpy or haughty manner.
    • First few months in, I was arsey as hell. Thought they were a right bunch of wankers.2000, Peter Billingham, Sensing the City Through Television: Urban Identities in Fictional Drama, page 50
    • "Oh, we had that singer in the other day and they were really arsey with us, and we only kept them waiting half an hour' - and I go, 'Hang on a minute, that's a long time and they've probably been doing lots of work that day and I think that it's actually justified for them to get annoyed.'"2002 October 28, Simon Hattenstone, quoting Sophie Ellis-Bextor, “Sophie's world”, in The Guardian
  2. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Lucky.

Examples of arsey in a sentence

  • Work experience as an arsey teenager is pretty straightforward: disappear into the storeroom, smoke a few cigarettes, text your mates and watch the minute hand tick slowly by.2007 April 30, Jon Bentham, “How to...... do work experience”, in The Guardian:
  • Maybe Hanna Frost, for all of her arsey mannerisms, really did know what she was doing.2011, Lotte Daley, Faking It, Penguin, →ISBN:

Forms of arsey

comparativemore arsey
superlativemost arsey
alternative formarsy

Origin of arsey

From arse + -y.

Words formed from arsey

  • arsey-versy

Words that rhyme with arsey

Questions about arsey

What does arsey mean?
Arsey means unpleasant, especially in a sarcastic, grumpy or haughty manner.
How do you use arsey in a sentence?
Work experience as an arsey teenager is pretty straightforward: disappear into the storeroom, smoke a few cigarettes, text your mates and watch the minute hand tick slowly by.
What part of speech is arsey?
Arsey is an adjective.
How do you pronounce arsey?
Arsey is pronounced /ˈɑː(ɹ)si/.

Words near arsey in the dictionary

  1. arsewards
  2. arsewash
  3. arseways
  4. arsewipe
  5. arsewipes
  6. arsey
  7. Arshag
  8. Arshak
  9. Arshakian
  10. Arshakians
  11. Arshakuni

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arsey (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-arsey.ogg.

Cite this entry: “arsey.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arsey. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.