tricky
Americanadjective
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involving snags or difficulties
a tricky job
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needing careful and tactful handling
a tricky situation
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characterized by tricks; sly; wily
a tricky dealer
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of tricky
Explanation
If something is tricky, it's difficult, like a tricky puzzle. And if a person is tricky, they're sneaky, skilled, or crafty, like a tricky magician who makes it look easy to pull quarters out of your ears. A tricky riddle is extremely hard to figure out, and a tricky question on a math test is even trickier if you can't use a calculator to solve it. In their 1986 rap classic, "It's Tricky," Run-DMC claimed that "it's tricky...to rock a rhyme that's right on time" — or in other words, it's really difficult to write a clever rap lyric.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Appeared in the April 21, 2026, print edition as 'Warsh Embarks On Tricky Path for Fed Job'.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 21, 2026
"Tricky one. Quick game. If we'd managed that extra 50 or 60, we probably would've been right in the contest at the end."
From Barron's • Dec. 27, 2025
Nottingham Forest, the Tricky Trees as they are known to their fans, are starting to show shoots of revival.
From BBC • Nov. 9, 2025
Working in the United States on an international visa from the Netherlands in 2014, Mangroe said she was invited via social media to join The-Dream and his partner Tricky Stewart in Atlanta.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 4, 2024
“So what do you think about your friend Tricky Dicky now, Milt?”
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
