Word.ws English Dictionary

in a pickle

in a pickle prepositional phrase: in a difficult situation or a troubling quandary.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic, informal) In a difficult situation or a troubling quandary.
    • How cam'ſt thou in this pickle? / Tri. I haue bin in ſuch a pickle ſince I ſaw you laſt, / That I feare me will neuer out of my bones:1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
    • Cody Ko, a YouTube star with 5.7 million subscribers, found himself in a pickle in May.2021 September 1, Taylor Lorenz, “She’s the Investor Guru for Online Creators”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    in a fix, troubled

Synonyms of in a pickle

Origin of in a pickle

The term refers to being in pickling solution, presumably unpleasant. It was first used in English by William Shakespeare in The Tempest (1611), although the phrase had been used in Dutch earlier.

Questions about in a pickle

What does in a pickle mean?
In a pickle means in a difficult situation or a troubling quandary.
What part of speech is in a pickle?
In a pickle is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in a pickle in the dictionary

  1. in a minute
  2. in a New York second
  3. in a nutshell
  4. in a one-er
  5. in a oner
  6. in a pickle
  7. in a pig's arse
  8. in a pig's eye
  9. in a pig's patoot
  10. in a pig's whisper
  11. in a pinch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in a pickle (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-in a pickle.wav.

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