Word.ws English Dictionary

ballsy

/ˈbɔlzi/

ballsy adjective: tough and courageous; having balls.

Adjective

ballsy (comparative ballsier, superlative ballsiest)

  1. (colloquial, vulgar) Tough and courageous; having balls.
    • On a movie like this, I don’t mind doing [the scene] as written, but I do do a lot of improv. I’m sort of a rapid-fire ballsy talker, and so I bring that to the character whenever it’s appropriate to the scene. That never makes it in.2016 June 2, Melena Ryzik, “Megan Fox on ‘Ninja Turtles’ and Female Stereotypes in Film”, in New York Times

Forms of ballsy

comparativeballsier
superlativeballsiest

Origin of ballsy

From balls (“courage”) + -y.

Words formed from ballsy

Questions about ballsy

What does ballsy mean?
Ballsy means tough and courageous; having balls.
What part of speech is ballsy?
Ballsy is an adjective.
How do you pronounce ballsy?
Ballsy is pronounced /ˈbɔlzi/.

Words near ballsy in the dictionary

  1. ballstriker
  2. ballstrikers
  3. ballsucker
  4. ballsuckers
  5. ballsweat
  6. ballsy
  7. balltism
  8. ballum rancum
  9. Ballure
  10. ballute
  11. ballutes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ballsy (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.

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

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