wicked

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Morally bad; cruel or evil.

   The wicked queen plotted to harm the young princess.

2. 2
   adj

   Playfully naughty or mischievous.

   She had a wicked sense of humor that kept everyone laughing.

3. 3
   adj

   Excellent or impressive (informal).

   That was a wicked guitar solo!

4. 4
   adv

   Very or extremely (informal, especially American English).

   It was wicked cold outside this morning.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Wicked entered Middle English from Old English wicca, “witch.” Its slang use meaning “excellent” or “very good,” a reversal of its usual unfavorable sense, is recorded from the 1920s.

From Middle English wicked, wikked, an alteration of Middle English wicke, wikke (“morally perverse, evil, wicked”). Of uncertain origin. Possibly from an adjectival use of Old English wiċċa (“wizard, sorcerer”), from Proto-West Germanic *wikkō (“necromancer, sorcerer”), though the phonology makes this theory difficult to explain. Alternatively, perhaps related to English wicker, Old Norse víkja (“to bend to, yield, turn, move”), Swedish vika (“to bend, fold, give way to”), English weak. The "excellent, awesome" sense is an ameliorative semantic shift from the original sense of "evil, mischiev…

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