dodgy
Americanadjective
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inclined to dodge.
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evasively tricky.
a dodgy manner of dealing with people.
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Chiefly British. risky; hazardous; chancy.
adjective
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risky, difficult, or dangerous
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uncertain or unreliable; tricky
Etymology
Origin of dodgy
Explanation
A dodgy situation is risky and suspicious. A dodgy person is skilled in lying and deceiving. Neither should be trusted. When a person or situation is called dodgy, it's a clue that they should be dodged if at all possible. A job might be dodgy because it's illegal or dangerous. A shortcut might be dodgy if it could damage your car. Running a marathon without preparation is very dodgy. Similarly, a dodgy person is untrustworthy because they’re evasive, cunning, sly, or just a flat-out liar.
Vocabulary lists containing dodgy
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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Never Let Me Go
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Wicked Ways: words for winning at all costs
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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:
It’s a stunning collapse for a onetime ad man with a dodgy reputation who rose to become the go-to digital campaign guru for Latin America’s ascendant right wing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2026
OK, but surely that’s all for dodgy people who worked for Collins?
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2026
Consumer group Which? said it has "repeatedly exposed businesses, including trusted household brands, ripping off customers with dodgy deals that aren't what they seem".
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
June, now 63, said her home office at the time had a dial-up modem, trading software downloaded from a compact disc and a dodgy internet connection.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
Jule got out of the subway in a dodgy Brooklyn neighborhood.
From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart
Banks are also beautifying their books through “significant risk transfers,” or SRTs, that shift potentially dodgier assets off balance sheet.
From Barron's ● Oct. 25, 2025
Things get a bit dodgier if you’re in a loud environment, but all headphones struggle in that scenario.
From The Verge ● May 12, 2022
Kayla will later deal with scarier and dodgier situations than these run-of-the-mill indignities, even if Eighth Grade mercifully never goes as dark as first-time writer-director Bo Burnham sometimes seem to hint it will.
From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2018
It is a hokey Highlands tale, crammed with dodgy kilts and still dodgier lyrics—“Don’t ye ken, There’s a fair, Down on MacConnachy Square?”—but the premise is oddly moving.
From Economist ● May 9, 2013
There was no smarter trader, and none dodgier, in the islands.
From Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson
Through the dodgiest situations, brother and sister do not hesitate to argue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 15, 2026
So, she walks, in darkness and icy rain, through the dodgiest parts of the city.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 4, 2016
Money arrives to Manafort circuitously, sometimes through the dodgiest of routes.
From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2016
Even the studio and one-bedroom apartments in “Block B”, long considered the dodgiest of the six, are now thought to be bijou.
From Economist ● Feb. 25, 2016
The reason to describe the plot in only the hedgiest and dodgiest of terms isn’t so much to avoid spoilers as to avoid giving away the only thing the movie’s got.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 16, 2015
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.
