Word.ws English Dictionary

palsy-walsy

palsy-walsy adjective: very friendly, especially in an excessive or artificial way.

Adjective

palsy-walsy (comparative more palsy-walsy, superlative most palsy-walsy)

  1. (slang) Very friendly, especially in an excessive or artificial way.
    • She's gotten palsy-walsy with her in-laws lately.
    Synonyms:
    chummy

Synonyms of palsy-walsy

Forms of palsy-walsy

comparativemore palsy-walsy
superlativemost palsy-walsy
alternative formpally-wally

Origin of palsy-walsy

Reduplicated from pals, + -y (adjectival suffix).

Questions about palsy-walsy

What does palsy-walsy mean?
Palsy-walsy means very friendly, especially in an excessive or artificial way.
What part of speech is palsy-walsy?
Palsy-walsy is an adjective.

Words near palsy-walsy in the dictionary

  1. palstaff
  2. palstaffs
  3. palstave
  4. palstaves
  5. palsy
  6. palsy-walsy
  7. palsying
  8. palsylike
  9. palsywort
  10. palsyworts
  11. Palta

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: palsy-walsy (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-au-palsy-walsy.ogg.

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