Word.ws English Dictionary

perky

US/ˈpɝki/

perky adjective: lively and often cheerful and enthusiastic. Also the alternative spelling of percy.

Adjective

perky (comparative perkier, superlative perkiest)

  1. Lively and often cheerful and enthusiastic.
    • She answered with a perky smile and bounced off.
  2. Standing upright; firm.
    • The plant looks much perkier since I watered it.
    • perky breasts
  3. (obsolete) Early-ripening.

Also used as

perky is also the alternative spelling of percy.

Examples of perky in a sentence

  • I arrived with my kooky shepherd shtick, but there was no perky lambiness about this lot.
  • She is dropping off two bloomed-out dendrobiums and a cattleya and picking up a perky slipper orchid.
  • I bent down and scratched Duffy behind his perky black ears.

All 16 example sentences with perky

Forms of perky

Adjective
comparativeperkier
superlativeperkiest
Noun
pluralperkies

Origin of perky

From perk + -y.

Words formed from perky

Phrases with perky

Words that rhyme with perky

Questions about perky

What does perky mean?
Perky means lively and often cheerful and enthusiastic.
What part of speech is perky?
Perky is an adjective.
How do you pronounce perky?
Perky is pronounced /ˈpɝki/ (US).

Words near perky in the dictionary

  1. Perkowskis
  2. perks
  3. perks one's ears
  4. perks up
  5. perks up one's ears
  6. perky
  7. Perky effect
  8. Perky effects
  9. perkyish
  10. Perl
  11. perlaceous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: perky (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)-Vealhurl-perky.wav.

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