frisky
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of frisky
Explanation
The adjective frisky means playful or lively. Your frisky puppy likes to play tug-of-war with your socks, whether they're on or off your feet. Frisky is from the Middle English word frisk, which in turn was based on the Old French word frisque. In all cases, the words mean lively and merry. Frisky is often used to describe animals, but the term is also sometimes used as a mild euphemism for being playfully affectionate.
Vocabulary lists containing frisky
Dog Vocabulary: A Canine Lexicon
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"The Landlady" by Roald Dahl
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Unit 1, Words to Know
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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:
Suppler than Tom Paxton’s original; not as frisky as Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton’s cover.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
High-end and low-end customers alike adored his frisky, unpredictable spirit — both on and off the runway.
From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2026
Fans are feeling frisky about a plan to transform the building into a bar, campaigning against the idea in letters to city board members and online.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026
The S&P 500 is up a frisky 15% so far this year.
From Barron's ● Oct. 10, 2025
Conrad, barefoot but wearing his green-striped bathrobe and jumping up and down like a frisky puppy, chased close behind Papa into the living room.
From "March Forward, Girl" by Melba Pattillo Beals
Lucy Dacus, “Best Guess” The unhurried tempo makes it only friskier.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2025
Had the movie emerged as a friskier game of eat the rich, it might have had a fighting chance of survival.
From New York Times ● Aug. 26, 2022
In June, Simon will release his thirteenth solo album, “Stranger to Stranger,” which is friskier and funnier than its recent predecessors—his most danceable music in decades.
From The New Yorker ● May 9, 2016
Yet if Osborne seems already to have decided what the commission's conclusions should be, its members have looked friskier.
From The Guardian ● May 22, 2013
In friskier moods, she performed lazy pirouettes, as though to the accompaniment of my own music box, which I always brought to the roof to keep me company.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Netflix promises the documentary will feature the cats' "finest and friskiest moments," so ailurophiles — you're in for a treat.
From Salon ● Jun. 5, 2021
These are the ones families often pick from a litter because they stand out as the brightest and friskiest.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 6, 2021
The same goes for the servant twins, with Carson Elrod getting some of Shakespeare’s friskiest wordplay as Dromio of Syracuse, while Carter Gill absorbs a lot of blows from his masters as Dromio of Ephesus.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 2, 2018
Among the friskiest selections are “Arboretum,” by Tony Williams, and “Zoot Suite,” by Jack DeJohnette; among the more plaintive are Ed Blackwell’s “Togo” and Paul Motian’s “It Should’ve Happened a Long Time Ago.”
From New York Times ● Aug. 13, 2010
Naturally, the nimblest, friskiest steers got in the front, and they were a sore trial to the Deacon, to restrain them to the line of march, and keep them from straying off and getting lost.
From Si Klegg, Book 4 (of 6) Experiences Of Si And Shorty On The Great Tullahoma Campaign by McElroy, John
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.
