dizzy
Americanadjective
-
dizzier,
comparative
-
dizziest
superlative
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having a sensation of whirling and a tendency to fall; giddy; vertiginous.
-
causing giddiness or confusion.
a dizzy height.
verb (used with object)
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dizzies,
present (3rd person singular)
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dizzied,
past participle, past
-
dizzying
present participle
adjective
-
affected with a whirling or reeling sensation; giddy
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mentally confused or bewildered
-
causing or tending to cause vertigo or bewilderment
-
informal foolish or flighty
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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dizzysimple
-
dizziessimple
-
have dizziedperfect
-
has dizziedperfect
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am dizzyingprogressive
-
are dizzyingprogressive
-
is dizzyingprogressive
-
have been dizzyingperfect progressive
-
has been dizzyingperfect progressive
Past
-
dizziedsimple
-
had dizziedperfect
-
was dizzyingprogressive
-
were dizzyingprogressive
-
had been dizzyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dizzy
First recorded before 900; Middle English dysy, Old English dysig “foolish”; cognate with Low German düsig “stupefied”
Explanation
When you're dizzy, you have a spinning or woozy sensation — you might even feel like you'l fall over. You'll probably feel dizzy for a while when you get off the whirling tea cup ride at the fair. Some people feel dizzy when they're up high, either on a ladder or at the top of a tall building or bridge. Others only get dizzy when they're coming down with the flu or after riding on the merry-go-round at the park. Another way to be dizzy is to be silly or frivolous: "I can't take him seriously, he's just so dizzy all the time." Dizzy comes from the Old English dysig, "foolish or stupid."
Vocabulary lists containing dizzy
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:
Feeling dizzy and unwell after cycling to work in Japan's punishing summer heat, warehouse worker Isao Tabuchi headed for his company's newest acquisition: a refrigerator for humans.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
Carmen Schober, the profile’s author, ignored the way members of Schmidt’s online forum, Skinni Société, commiserated about their hair loss and inability to stand without getting dizzy.
From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026
If using a fan, drink water, avoid directing it continuously at the face while sleeping, and stop using it if it makes you feel hotter, dizzy or unwell.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
As a result of the physical exertion, the former chef claims that she “became dizzy, began choking and gasping for air, and required assistance from security personnel, who intervened by providing water and aid.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
I do stop to tie my shoes, and I’m wobbly while I do it because my head is still dizzy.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
“They can march around the ring as long as they want, until they are so dizzy — dizzier then they already are — that they fall down.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2019
Then again, maybe he’s just woozy from all the money he’s made since buying the club, and the thought of taller piles make him dizzier.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 29, 2018
The injections don’t change how much pain I experience, but the next day I wake up even dizzier, with the woozy sensation that my body is rocking in space.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 17, 2016
In effect, censorship created plot, and in the process yielded one of the greatest of American film genres: thirties romantic comedy, including the dizzier versions celebrated as screwball comedy.
From The New Yorker ● May 2, 2016
Puffing loudly, Harry, Ron, and Hermione climbed the tightly spiraling steps, getting dizzier and dizzier, until at last they heard the murmur of voices above them and knew they had reached the classroom.
From "Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling
She was auditioning for the role of Margot, the dizziest of the sorority sisters, a woman who has deep conversations with a Chihuahua.
From New York Times ● May 10, 2023
Their conclusion: “We think we have X-rayed the dizziest — and this will amaze you, as it did us, the dirtiest — community in America.”
From Washington Post ● Jan. 9, 2016
It’s hypnotic in its empty-headed positivity, an exercise in teenybopper mythologizing that accidentally doubles as a deeply sad deconstruction of fame at its dizziest and most ephemeral.
From Slate ● Jan. 23, 2014
In early March, ARM's shares reached their highest point since the dizziest days of the dotcom boom 13 years ago, pushing its market value to $20.3bn.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 19, 2013
They performed the dizziest feats of arithmetic, soaring quite out of MY feeble range, and perpetrated, in higher spirits than ever, geographical and historical jokes.
From The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
There is no dizzies, there is no cramps, there is no menopause.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2011
She dizzies him with quotes from Erich Fromm.
From Time Magazine Archive
The number teases, dazzles the mind and even dizzies it, but that does not add up to understanding.
From Time Magazine Archive
Eve.The precipice of ill Down this colossal nature, dizzies me: And, hark! the starry harmony remote Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell.
From The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Vol. I by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The whirl so dizzies, she breathes short; The serpent spirals seem to fold Laocöon-like about her limbs.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 by Sir F. C. (Francis Cowley) Burnand
As Jamieson Gibson-Park picked and went from the base, Lowe swerved out of his hiding spot and past a dizzied Chandler Cunningham-South.
From BBC ● Mar. 17, 2025
I was dizzied with terror, no ground beneath me; it was crazy-making, endless.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2023
I felt, not for the first time that summer, dizzied by the dissonance.
From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2020
He was still dizzied by what Australia’s increasingly volatile climate had already delivered: first a drought, then a devastating bush fire, then a foot of rain from a tropical storm.
From New York Times ● Feb. 23, 2020
They were dazzled and dizzied by the vision of the future they planned to share, which Lexie wanted so badly, sometimes, that she lay awake at night thinking about it.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
Your first-class ticket could soon be second class as U.S. airlines add to their dizzying roster of seating options.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026
In less than a month, Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison has exhibited a dizzying range of emotions as the goal line for the coveted $111-billion Warner Bros.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
The company has tens of thousands of pickup locations across the country -- even in remote villages -- and sells a dizzying range of products, from medicine to children's goods.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
Thirty-year-old Bardella has had a dizzying career up the RN ranks, but he was always measured about his prospects of becoming president.
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
Bees buzzed through honeysuckle and jasmine, which filled the afternoon air with a dizzying mix of perfumes.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
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.
