rocky
1 Americanadjective
-
rockier,
comparative
-
rockiest
superlative
-
inclined or likely to rock; tottering; shaky; unsteady.
-
difficult or uncertain; full of hazards or obstacles.
a business with a rocky future.
-
physically unsteady or weak, as from sickness.
adjective
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consisting of or abounding in rocks
a rocky shore
-
hard or unyielding
rocky determination
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hard like rock
rocky muscles
adjective
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weak, shaky, or unstable
-
informal (of a person) dizzy; sickly; nauseated
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of rocky1
First recorded in 1400–50; rock 1 + -y 1 ( def. )
Origin of rocky2
Explanation
Anything rocky is covered with rocks, like a rocky beach or hillside. You can also use rocky for something that moves in a bumpy or uneven manner, like a rocky ride in a Jeep. There's a figurative sense of rocky that means "difficult, rough, or up-and-down" like your rocky relationship with your sister or a struggling business's rocky future. This meaning comes from a combination of the "uneven and covered with rocks" definition and the verb rock, or "sway back and forth." The Rocky Mountains, which aren't actually all that rocky, were named for the local Native American people, called "the stone Sioux" by their Cree neighbors.
Vocabulary lists containing rocky
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:
With bright, pink hair, she was more focused on singing in a "very punk, rocky type" band called The Mephs, short for Mephistophelean Engines of Pleasure.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2026
Earth has an unusually large moon compared with other rocky planets in the solar system, but scientists still do not fully understand how it formed.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026
The path down was rocky and difficult to cross.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
“The track record of memecoins has been rocky at best, and it was not clear that this issue had either the backer or the timing to buck that trend.”
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 9, 2026
Shadows dripped like dark purple paint down the fiery orange sides on the rocky plateaus in the distance.
From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young
While those early investors saw sizable paper gains when SpaceX went public, it’s been a rockier ride since then.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026
The new year is already off to a rockier start, with the stock down around 24% in 2026.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
Their results show that either planet could be dominated by water-rich layers or by a far rockier structure.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 10, 2025
But it’s been a rockier road than they had hoped.
From Salon ● Nov. 13, 2025
The land surrounding it was rockier than any other place we knew, and the path to it branched off underneath a massive fallen oak that looked somewhat like a mermaid.
From "The Season of Styx Malone" by Kekla Magoon
The past year—which included parent company Paramount’s controversial merger with Skydance Media, and the installment of Bari Weiss as CBS News’ editor in chief—has been one of the rockiest in 60 Minutes’ decadeslong history.
From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2026
That is helping Weyerhaeuser ride out one of the rockiest periods for the forest-products industry in the past two decades.
From Barron's ● Dec. 16, 2025
But redemption truly will be judged in this series, and he got off to the rockiest of starts, missing his first six threes before finally splashing one in the fourth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 20, 2024
The totality of the departures — 25 percent of the membership — heaps additional pressure on Commissioner George Kliavkoff, whose two years at the helm have been arguably the rockiest in conference history.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 27, 2023
The trail maintainers in Maine have a certain hale devotion to seeking out the rockiest climbs and most forbidding slopes, and of these Maine has a breathtaking plenitude.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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.
