sticky

CEFRA1

/ˈstɪki/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Covered with something that sticks to things.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Difficult, awkward.

Examples

Clerks with sticky fingers won't keep their jobs for long.
The politician had sticky fingers, and 5% of every contract ended in his pocket.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

Of a death: unpleasant, grisly.
Tending to stick; able to adhere via the drying of a viscous substance.
Of weather: hot and windless and with high humidity, so that people feel sticky from sweating.

More examples

In context

What's all that sticky stuff on the carpet?
Is this tape sticky enough to stay on that surface?
This is a sticky situation. We could be in this for weeks if we're not careful.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The honey was so blank that it dripped slowly from the spoon.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Particularly sticky books are cleaned with methylated spirits.
2016 June 5, Thomas Manch, “CuriousCity: What happens to my library books when I return them?”, in Stuff, archived from the original on 04 May 2019
GCN is not just another clipboard of polite press releases. GCN is the sticky questions, the sweet moments, and the dirty stories that make up our lives.
1989 December 24, Abe Rybeck, “Liberation Without Permission, Pleasure Without Apology”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 24, page 5
Among the books Mum brought me to read when I was a child were The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, as well as their author Frances Hodgson Burnett's smash hit, Little Lord Fauntleroy. I haven't met an adult my age who has read this book but I did so several times. It's a sticky book, guided by that strange Victorian obsession with "the little mother" – the same obsession that Virginia Woolf, a child of Victorian parents, grappled with in her diaries and her fiction. Somehow, though, I learned to overlook the archaic, to be open to the oddnesses of different eras, and to read for something else.
2020 June 25, Tegan Bennett Daylight, “My mother taught me the joy of reading. I remember her through books”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 May 2023
Salmond studied medieval Scottish history as well as economics at university so he cannot say he has not had fair warning – it was even more turbulent and bloody than England at that time – and plenty of Scotland's kings and leaders came to a sticky end. If it happens this time, it won't be dull.
2014 September 8, Michael White, “Roll up, roll up! The Amazing Salmond will show a Scotland you won't believe”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 Oct 2022
The baby was due in December and the hot, sticky August weather was making Jane uncomfortable.
2008, Robert K. Fitts, Wally Yonamine: The Man Who Changed Japanese Baseball

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Origin

adjective

From stick + -y.

Deep Dive

adjective

More examples

Related

Quick test

The honey was so blank— that it dripped slowly from the spoon.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

The honey was so blank that it dripped slowly from the spoon.