sidekick
Americannoun
-
a close friend.
-
a confederate or assistant.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sidekick
Explanation
A sidekick is a buddy who comes with you on your adventures. If you’re a superhero, your sidekick helps you fight crime. Electra Woman’s sidekick was the teenage Dyna Girl, and in the ‘70s they defeated villains on TV. A sidekick might be a work assistant, a best friend, or even a devoted dog that follows you to school every day. Sometimes this word signifies an imbalance of power, though; if you say, “This is my sidekick, Sarah," it implies that Sarah has less authority than you do. The origin of this word is unknown, but we do know that it appeared after the terms side-pal and side-partner fell out of fashion.
Vocabulary lists containing sidekick
Superhero Lexicon
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New Kid
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Comic Book Day
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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:
Who, then, was the sidekick in that relationship?
From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026
And so it will, for at least several more years, Austin Reaves now occupying a Laker leading sidekick role made famous during their championship years by the likes of Anthony Davis and Pau Gasol.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
“The Mandalorian,” in which Pedro Pascal plays a bounty hunter who works with a sidekick that fans nicknamed “Baby Yoda,” has been the most successful and a big hit in consumer-product sales.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 24, 2026
He also helped introduce the Batman villain Killer Croc, as well as Jason Todd, the young man who would succeed Dick Grayson as Batman’s sidekick Robin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2026
My newest edible sidekick, Pierre the Pineapple, probably has a good two weeks of life before the flies come and Dad dumps him in the compost bin.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
Wacky animal sidekicks once felt vibrant in a holistic world of artifice; here, a goggle-eyed rooster just looks diseased.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
Channel 5 news presenter and former BBC Breakfast host Dan Walker, Radio 2's DJ Spoony, and Ball's breakfast show sidekicks Mike Williams and Richie Anderson were also among those who sent good wishes.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
In “Predator: Badlands,” that involved giving an ugly monster emotional vulnerability and a PG-13 adventure with a couple sidekicks, including a chatty android played by Elle Fanning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
They’re like Boris and Natasha, if Boris and Natasha had gay sidekicks whose equally unsurprising side plot would’ve made a more thorny and altogether insightful critique of contemporary social politics.
From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2025
Pixie gave a sign to her sidekicks it was time to leave.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
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.
