Wicked

How to spell wicked

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wicked

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wicked mean?

1. adjectiveMorally wrong, evil, or cruel in intent.
2. adjectiveInformally, excellent, impressive, or extremely good.

Wicked in a sentence

• The novel follows a wicked landlord who cheats his tenants.

• The band played a wicked set at the festival last night.

• Spreading those rumours was a wicked thing to do.

• She has a wicked sense of humour that keeps the office laughing.

Where does wicked come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Wicked grew out of the Middle English wikked, an adjective formed from the older word wikke, meaning 'bad' or 'evil'. That base is generally traced back to Old English wicca, the word for a sorcerer or witch (its feminine partner wicce gives us 'witch'), so the original flavour of the word was tied to dark, malevolent magic. By the 1200s the -ed ending had been bolted on, much as it was in 'crabbed' or 'dogged', producing an adjective rather than a true past-tense verb. That history explains a small spelling quirk: although wicked ends in -ed, it is not a verb form, and it keeps its two-syllable pronunciation 'WIK-id'. From the eighteenth century onward English speakers, especially in informal slang, flipped the sense on its head so that 'wicked' could also mean wonderful or impressive, a reversal much like 'bad' coming to mean 'good'.

How the word is built

• wick- (from Middle English wikke: bad, evil)
• -ed (adjective suffix)