dizzy
Americanadjective
-
dizzier,
comparative
-
dizziest
superlative
-
having a sensation of whirling and a tendency to fall; giddy; vertiginous.
-
causing giddiness or confusion.
a dizzy height.
verb (used with object)
-
dizzies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
dizzied,
past participle, past
-
dizzying
present participle
adjective
-
affected with a whirling or reeling sensation; giddy
-
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
-
dizzysimple
-
dizziessimple
-
have dizziedperfect
-
has dizziedperfect
-
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:
It means Tottenham have moved into the dizzy heights of the top half of the table.
From BBC ● Oct. 31, 2026
It was so hot that she had to run a portable A/C unit around the clock to avoid feeling dizzy and nauseated.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026
At the Commonwealths, she was dizzy while running and her body was more sore than normal.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
In the birthplace of Venezuela's oil industry, thick black crude seeps through cracks in the earth, and the air is heavy with the smell of gas, leaving visitors dizzy.
From Barron's ● Sep. 26, 2026
My headache was worse; I was dizzy, trying to think of what to do.
From "Nory Ryan’s Song" by Patricia Reilly Giff
“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
Wilbur had been feeling dizzier and dizzier through this long, complimentary speech.
From "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
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
Well, she's one of the dizziest that ever stood up to make a background for the pony ballet.
From Side-stepping with Shorty by Sewell Ford
There is no dizzies, there is no cramps, there is no menopause.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2011
The number teases, dazzles the mind and even dizzies it, but that does not add up to understanding.
From Time Magazine Archive
She dizzies him with quotes from Erich Fromm.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
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
Inexplicably, he found himself at LaGuardia Airport, so dizzied had he been by the experience.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Keely Hodgkinson stood with her eyes and mouth wide open in astonishment, hands fixed either side of a head dizzied by two laps that had changed everything.
From BBC ● May 22, 2024
I felt, not for the first time that summer, dizzied by the dissonance.
From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2020
You walk through, a bit dizzied, as the lines between reality and film begin to blur.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2019
The snowflakes whirled and dizzied in front of them.
From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman
Needless to say, there’s a lot going on in Butler’s busy, occasionally dizzying script, though compressing the approximately 550-page source material was surely no easy task.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
The New York Times, external noted how it sees Holmes and Fielder "joust in a dizzying movie about truth, reality and the contours of knowledge".
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
As in other resort towns, hotels and ski mountains were charging dizzying rates to keep up with operational costs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
The dizzying selloff has put many bonds underwater.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 3, 2026
This was even more exquisitely immediate; there was nothing between her and dizzying sensation.
From "Huntress" by Malinda Lo
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