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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wicked.

Evil or mischievous by nature; morally reprehensible.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈwɪk.ɪd/Australia, Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈwək.əd/New-Zealand
  1. Evil or mischievous by nature; morally reprehensible.

    Genuine cowards follow wicked people and cannot reliably sustain any virtue.
  2. Harsh; severe.

    wicked wind
  3. Excellent; awesome; masterful; exceptional.

    slang
    That was a wicked guitar solo, bro!
Where this word comes from

From Middle English wicked, wikked, an alteration of Middle English wicke, wikke (“morally perverse, evil, wicked”). Of uncertain origin. Possibly from an adjectival use of Old English wiċċa (“wizard, sorcerer”), from Proto-West Germanic *wikkō (“necromancer, sorcerer”), though the phonology makes this theory difficult to explain. Alternatively, perhaps related to English wicker, Old Norse víkja (“to bend to, yield, turn, move”), Swedish vika (“to bend, fold, give way to”), English weak. The "excellent, awesome" sense is an ameliorative semantic shift from the original sense of "evil, mischievous". Compare similar semantic development in terrific and sick.

adv/ˈwɪk.ɪd/Australia, Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈwək.əd/New-Zealand
  1. To a superlative extent, very, extremely

    Scotland · archaic · not-comparable · slang
    I didn't really wanna go see On Golden Pond with the fam, but my mom made me go, and I must say that in retrospect it was a wicked expressive film, with a lot of significant meaning.
    The band we went to see the other night was pissah, and they were wicked loud!
Where this word comes from

From Middle English wicked, wikked, an alteration of Middle English wicke, wikke (“morally perverse, evil, wicked”). Of uncertain origin. Possibly from an adjectival use of Old English wiċċa (“wizard, sorcerer”), from Proto-West Germanic *wikkō (“necromancer, sorcerer”), though the phonology makes this theory difficult to explain. Alternatively, perhaps related to English wicker, Old Norse víkja (“to bend to, yield, turn, move”), Swedish vika (“to bend, fold, give way to”), English weak. The "excellent, awesome" sense is an ameliorative semantic shift from the original sense of "evil, mischievous". Compare similar semantic development in terrific and sick.

noun/ˈwɪk.ɪd/Australia, Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈwək.əd/New-Zealand
  1. Wicked (evil) people collectively.

    plural · plural-only
Where this word comes from

From Middle English wicked, wikked, an alteration of Middle English wicke, wikke (“morally perverse, evil, wicked”). Of uncertain origin. Possibly from an adjectival use of Old English wiċċa (“wizard, sorcerer”), from Proto-West Germanic *wikkō (“necromancer, sorcerer”), though the phonology makes this theory difficult to explain. Alternatively, perhaps related to English wicker, Old Norse víkja (“to bend to, yield, turn, move”), Swedish vika (“to bend, fold, give way to”), English weak. The "excellent, awesome" sense is an ameliorative semantic shift from the original sense of "evil, mischievous". Compare similar semantic development in terrific and sick.

adj/wɪkt/Australia, Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/wəkt/New-Zealand
  1. Having a wick.

    not-comparable
    a two-wicked lamp
Where this word comes from

See wick.

adj/ˈwɪkɪd/
  1. Active; brisk.

    UK · dialectal · obsolete
  2. Infested with maggots.

    UK · Yorkshire · dialectal
  3. Alternative form of wick, as applying to inanimate objects only.

    alt-of · alternative
Where this word comes from

See wick.

verb/wɪkt/Australia, Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/wəkt/New-Zealand
  1. simple past and past participle of wick

    form-of · participle · past
Where this word comes from

See wick.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.