sicker

sicker

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪkə(ɹ)

• Audio (US)

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Etymology 1

sick +‎ -er

Adjective

sicker

1. The comparative form of sick: more sick.

Etymology 2

From Middle English siker (“secure, safe, stable, certain; gewiss, securely, safely, certainly”), from Old English sicer, sicor (“secure from, free from guilt and the punishment, safe, free from danger or harm, sure, certain, free from doubt, trustworthy”), from Proto-Germanic *sikuraz (“free, secure”), from Latin sēcūrus (“secure”, literally “without care”). See secure. Doublet of sure and secure. Cognate with Scots siker, seker (“safe, secure”), North Frisian sijcker (“sure, secure”), Dutch zeker (“sure, certain, safe, secure, confirmed”), German sicher (“sure, secure, confirmed”), Swedish säker (“secure, safe, sure”), Norwegian sikker (“secure”).

Alternative forms

• siker
• siccer
• siccar

Adjective

sicker

1. (obsolete outside dialectal) Certain.

   I'm sicker that he's not home.

2. (obsolete outside dialectal) Secure, safe.

   To walk a sicker path

   • G. Menzies (1822)

     Life's no sicker station.

   • Good Words (1881)

     We made sicker that he was wi' you.

   • S. R. Crockett (1894)

     I'm as great on the side of the law as it's sicker to be in the uncertain times.

Adverb

sicker

1. (obsolete outside dialectal) Certainly.
2. (obsolete outside dialectal) Securely.

Derived terms

• sickerly
• sickerhood
• sickerness

Etymology 3

From Middle English *sikeren (attested only as sikeniez (“(it) trickles, (it) leaks, (it) oozes”)), from Old English sicerian (“to ooze, seep”), from Proto-Germanic *sikrōną (“to trickle”), from Proto-Germanic *sīką (“slow running water”). Akin to sitch.

Alternative forms

• sigger
• zigger

Verb

sicker (third-person singular simple present sickers, present participle sickering, simple past and past participle sickered)

1. (mining, Britain, dialectal) To percolate, trickle, or ooze, as water through a crack.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for sicker in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

• Rickes, Riecks, ickers, scrike

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German

Verb

sicker

1. First-person singular present of sickern.
2. Imperative singular of sickern.

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Middle English

Adjective

sicker

1. Alternative form of siker

Adverb

sicker

1. Alternative form of siker