icky
/ˈɪki/
icky adjective: unpleasantly sticky; yucky; disgusting.
Adjective
icky (comparative ickier, superlative ickiest)
- Unpleasantly sticky; yucky; disgusting.
- I stepped in something icky and it smells terrible.
- Crew member Sachin Sharma of India said workers had no problems with being thrust into the icky job of handling the red bags filled with human waste.2013 February 15, Wayne Drash, “On crippled cruise ship, icky jobs fell to ‘amazing’ crew”, in CNN
- Excessively sentimental.
- Unwell or upset; in a bad state of mind or health.
- I'm not going to work today. I just feel icky.
- Synonyms:
- bad, poorly, sick, ailing, crank, crook, green about the gills, ill, indisposed, infirm
Examples of icky in a sentence
- She had a wedge do with blond highlights and was cheerful without being icky.
- From another room a door skreeked open, and Lucille returned with a rag and icky pillow.
- “Icky baby shutty-uppy or Leda pinch her icky botty.” Baby June screamed suddenly.
Synonyms of icky
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of icky
| comparative | ickier |
|---|---|
| superlative | ickiest |
Origin of icky
1935, American English; from icky-boo (circa 1920): sickly, nauseated; baby talk corruption of sick; from a sentimental term for jazz music.
Words formed from icky
Words that rhyme with icky
Questions about icky
- What does icky mean?
- Icky means unpleasantly sticky; yucky; disgusting.
- What part of speech is icky?
- Icky is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce icky?
- Icky is pronounced /ˈɪki/.
Words near icky in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: icky (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-us-icky.ogg.
Cite this entry: “icky.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/icky. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.