wicked

CEFRB1

/ˈwɪk.ɪd/

adjective · adverb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Morally bad or deliberately harmful.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Excellent; awesome; masterful; exceptional.

Examples

  • It is wicked of you to do such things.

  • Punish the wicked and save the weak.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Also pronounced

  • /wɪkt/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Harsh; severe.

  2. Evil or mischievous by nature; morally reprehensible.

adverb

Extra meaning

  1. To a superlative extent, very, extremely

More examples

In context

  • The wicked witch cast a spell on the man and turned him into a bug.

  • Genuine cowards follow wicked people and cannot reliably sustain any virtue.

  • That was a wicked guitar solo, bro!

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

In the fairy tale, the blank witch cast a spell to turn the prince into a frog.

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

Nearby

Origin

adjective

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.