dicey
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Adjective Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dicey
Explanation
Something that's dicey is unpredictable — and it may even be risky or downright dangerous. Bringing up controversial subjects like politics at Thanksgiving dinner with your relatives can be dicey. If you fix your motorcycle yourself, you may feel like it's a pretty dicey vehicle for riding on the highway, and when you're not at all sure how you did on your biology final, you might say, "Phew, that was dicey." Dicey is an informal word that comes from the idea of the unknown outcome of "a roll of the dice," from aviator's jargon around 1940.
Vocabulary lists containing dicey
This Week in Words: April 7- 13, 2018
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Uh-Oh: Synonyms for "Dangerous"
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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.
See Examples For:
While “Drag Race” is no longer a niche program, the art of drag remains contentious, and giving a wide release to a film like this is both confident and dicey.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026
Business schools are lowering the costs of advanced degrees to try to appeal to workers spooked by AI and a dicey job market.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026
Slate’s Ian Prasad Philbrick wrote a fine piece about how this latest fad is dicey on both policy and political grounds.
From Slate ● May 2, 2026
Last week, we asked you to tell us about your biggest money mistakes — and you opened up about everything from dicey stock-market bets to spending habits that got out of control.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 7, 2026
They fill their mind and hands with soap and repair and dicey confrontations because what is waiting for them, in a suddenly idle moment, is the seep of rage.
From "Jazz" by Toni Morrison
What may have started out as a good idea became too good as deals got dicier.
From Barron's ● Mar. 27, 2026
Reaching that balance gets dicier when navigating a boardroom packed with titans of American industry and finance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
But Mitchell did step in during some of Wuthering Heights' dicier scenes to make sure the star was safe.
From BBC ● Mar. 3, 2026
You don’t really want to hit a guardrail with a vehicle like that, but electrification can make things even dicier.
From Slate ● Feb. 6, 2024
Surely if plagiarism can ever be said “digito monstrari et dicier hic est,” it is here.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 by Various
Nor will Sir Keir’s diciest moments politically over the coming months necessarily all be a result of big tax and spend decisions he makes.
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2024
When they did in Thursday’s third quarter, their lead grew during what have been the Clippers’ diciest stretches all season — the minutes that George sits for rest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2021
This isn’t any kind of journalism, not even the diciest variety of supermarket tabloidism.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 8, 2019
But Clement’s diciest moment came when Justice Elena Kagan faced him down.
From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2013
Perhaps the diciest situation is in Dallas, where prevailing opinion is the Cowboys have tons of ability on the field, very little of it away from the field.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 5, 2012
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.
