kicksy-wicksy
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From kick + -sy and either wince or reduplication.
Adjective[edit]
kicksy-wicksy (comparative more kicksy-wicksy, superlative most kicksy-wicksy)
- (archaic) Restless, fidgety.
- c. 1632 (written), Richard Brome, “The Covent-Garden Weeded”, in Five nevv Playes […][1], published 1659, page 17:
- This kicksy wincy Giddibrain will spoil all. I’le no more Italian tricks.
- 1887, A. D. T. Whitney, Odd, or Even?, 14th edition, page 72:
- True, she had her “kicksy-wicksy” days, as Sarell has said: days when it was “clear torment for her to lay still and keep herself out o’ things that she knew she could straighten out if she was only round amongst ’em”; […]
- 1888, Matilda Betham-Edwards, The Parting of the Ways: A Novel, page 159:
- It seems to me an ungrateful return for the favour of Providence to begin a gadding, kicksy-wicksy life the moment you have a little money in your pocket, as much as to say how wretched you had been before!
Further reading[edit]
- “kicksy-wicksy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.