Word.ws English Dictionary

lickerous

lickerous adjective: lickerish; lecherous; eager; lustful.

Adjective

lickerous (comparative more lickerous, superlative most lickerous)

  1. (archaic) lickerish; lecherous; eager; lustful.
    • [...] and taking leave of each other with a courteous kiss, she pleasantly passed forth on her journey and this untoward lickerous chamberlain repaired homeward.1973, Arthur F. Kinney, Rogues, Vagabonds, & Sturdy Beggars
    • Next up the valley beyond him lived Phineas Cowan, whose inclinations, in spite of his advanced age, were lustful and lickerous.1992, Tony Hillerman, The Best of the West

Examples of lickerous in a sentence

  • The broad-faced, sluttish helot, the slave wife Grubby and warm, who opens unashamed Her thousand wombs unguarded to the lickerous sun.1992, C. S. Lewis, Michael Hague, The Pilgrim's Regress:
  • "My lady, thou art lickerous." He smiled, pressing the heel of his hand against her.2011, Laura Kinsale, For My Lady's Heart:

Forms of lickerous

comparativemore lickerous
superlativemost lickerous
alternative formliquorous
alternative formlickorous
alternative formlicorous
alternative formlikresse

Origin of lickerous

From Middle English likerous, lykerous, likrus, from Anglo-Norman *likerous, *lekerous (“dainty”), apparently an unassibilated variant (compare lekeor, leckeur variants of lecheor, lichieor (“glutton, lecher”)) of Old French *lecherous ("dainty, wanton"; > English lecherous); see lecherous.

Words formed from lickerous

Questions about lickerous

What does lickerous mean?
Lickerous means lickerish; lecherous; eager; lustful.
How do you use lickerous in a sentence?
The broad-faced, sluttish helot, the slave wife Grubby and warm, who opens unashamed Her thousand wombs unguarded to the lickerous sun.
What part of speech is lickerous?
Lickerous is an adjective.

Words near lickerous in the dictionary

  1. licker
  2. licker-in
  3. lickerish
  4. lickerishly
  5. lickerishness
  6. lickerous
  7. lickerousness
  8. lickers
  9. lickers-in
  10. lickerty
  11. lickery

Source and license

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