Word.ws English Dictionary

chancy

/ˈtʃænsi/

chancy adjective: uncertain; risky; hazardous.

Adjective

chancy (comparative chancier, superlative chanciest)

  1. Uncertain; risky; hazardous.
    • In winter steam contributes a fairly high proportion of its tractive effort, say 15 per cent, to heating the train. Diesels have at the moment separate oil-fired boilers which are somewhat chancy affairs, and only electric locomotives grab unlimited power for heating which does not affect their...1960 April, G. F. Fiennes, “Unpunctuality - the cause and the cure”, in Trains Illustrated, page 244
    • You might think it's foolish
      This chancy rendezvous
      (You might think) You might think I'm crazy
      (All I want) All I want is you1984, Ric Ocasek, “You Might Think”, in Heartbeat City, performed by The Cars
    Synonyms:
    dicey, iffy
  2. Subject to chance; random.
  3. (colloquial, dated) Lucky; bringing good luck.
    • His haggard gaze swept this way and that, seeking possible succour where reason told him there could be no succour; and then as his vision pieced together this outjutting architectural feature and that into a coherent picture of his immediate surroundings he knew where he was. The one bit of chancy...1919, Irvin S. Cobb, The Life of the Party, page 49

Proper noun capitalized: Chancy

Chancy

  1. An English surname from Old French.
  2. A male given name transferred from the surname.

chancy meaning in Urdu and Malayalam

chancy in Urdu

غیریقینی

chancy in Malayalam

uncertain, risky, unpredictable
അനിശ്ചിതമായ, വിപൽസാദ്ധ്യതയുള്ള, അപ്രവചനീയമായ, പ്രവചിക്കാനാവാത്ത, പ്രവചനാതീതമായ, ആപല്ക്കരമായ

Examples of chancy in a sentence

  • Diesels have at the moment separate oil-fired boilers which are somewhat chancy affairs, and only electric locomotives grab unlimited power for heating which does not affect their punctuality.1960 April, G. F. Fiennes, “Unpunctuality - the cause and the cure”, in Trains Illustrated, page 244:
  • The one bit of chancy luck in a sequence of direful catastrophes had brought him here[Pg 49] to this very spot.1919, Irvin S. Cobb, The Life of the Party, page 49:

Synonyms of chancy

Forms of chancy

comparativechancier
superlativechanciest
alternative formchancey

Origin of chancy

From chance + -y.

Words formed from chancy

Words that rhyme with chancy

Questions about chancy

What does chancy mean?
Chancy means uncertain; risky; hazardous.
What is chancy in Urdu?
Chancy in Urdu is غیریقینی. See Chancy meaning in Urdu.
How do you use chancy in a sentence?
Diesels have at the moment separate oil-fired boilers which are somewhat chancy affairs, and only electric locomotives grab unlimited power for heating which does not affect their punctuality.
What part of speech is chancy?
Chancy can be an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce chancy?
Chancy is pronounced /ˈtʃænsi/.

Words near chancy in the dictionary

  1. chancriform
  2. chancroid
  3. chancroidal
  4. chancroids
  5. chancrous
  6. chancy
  7. Chand
  8. Chanda
  9. chandal
  10. chandala
  11. chandalas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chancy (page history and authors); Chancy (page history and authors); chancy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); chancy (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-chancy.wav.

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