adjective
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sticky
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excessively sentimental or emotional
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of icky
An Americanism dating back to 1930–35; of uncertain origin
Explanation
Something that's icky is disgusting and gummy or sticky. When you walk around a busy city all day, you're bound to end up with something icky stuck to the bottom of your shoe. After frolicking through the mud, your dog will be dirty and icky, and a particularly humid summer day can feel icky too. You can also use icky to simply mean "yucky" or "nasty," as when your school cafeteria offers several icky dishes for lunch, like mystery meat and mystery mash. The informal icky is an American invention, from the 1920's slang icky-boo, baby talk for "sick" or "nauseated."
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:
Voters who find the continued cultural swirl around this issue icky nonetheless may take comfort that their legislature already is getting the matter under control.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
That doesn’t make it any less emotionally icky or tricky.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 23, 2026
The result is that now we all have to deal with it as they work through their icky feelings in real time.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2026
But for now, plenty of market signals suggest that it’s OK for investors to live in a home where there are cockroaches in the walls — as icky as it feels.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 6, 2025
We spend the rest of the day de-dustifying—my term for getting rid of all of the icky dust—and mopping the floors.
From "A Soft Place to Land" by Janae Marks
It’s a creepy setup that Muschietti milks for laughs that become queasier and ickier the longer and the more gleefully flamboyant the scene plays out.
From New York Times ● Jun. 14, 2023
It frankly feels ickier now to be rah-rah about the Olympics than it used to be, and the telecasts of Olympic events rarely even nods at those qualms, much less explore them in detail.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2021
And she cleans the boss’s office, too, which makes for one of the film’s ickier moments as she dons plastic gloves and scrubs a few stains from his couch.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 29, 2020
As instantly disposable as a snow cone, “Stuber” melts twice as fast, leaving an even ickier residue.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 9, 2019
When the truth about Harriet’s disappearance does emerge, it’s lurid without being particularly surprising, and the last quarter of the movie goes by in a blur of sensationally icky flashbacks and ickier comeuppances.
From Slate ● Dec. 20, 2011
For me, it’s actually the ickiest part of this whole story.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 24, 2026
Still, Park remembers that when producer Syd Lim first read the “Oldboy” script, he was flabbergasted at the movie’s ickiest revelation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2023
The first Romero film I saw was “Creepshow,” the anthology film inspired by EC Comics, with a screenplay by Stephen King; it had one of the ickiest deaths I had ever sat through.
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2017
Would you help her track her stolen phone through Manhattan’s ickiest tourist traps?
From Time ● Feb. 17, 2016
Winston's ickiest godchildren would face off in Alien vs.
From Time Magazine Archive
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