dizzy

• dizzie (obsolete)

From Middle English disy, dysy, desi, dusy, from Old English dysiġ, dyseġ (“dizzy; foolish; unwise; stupid”), from Proto-Germanic *dusigaz (“stunned; dazed”). Akin to West Frisian dize (“fog”), Dutch deusig, duizig (“dizzy”), duizelig (“dizzy”), German dösig (“sleepy; stupid”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈdɪzi/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɪzi

dizzy (comparative dizzier, superlative dizziest)

1. Having a sensation of whirling, with a tendency to fall; giddy; feeling unbalanced or lightheaded.

   I stood up too fast and felt dizzy.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Drayton

     Alas! his brain was dizzy.

2. Producing giddiness.

   We climbed to a dizzy height.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Macaulay

     To climb from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder.

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IX

     ...faintly from the valley far below came an unmistakable sound which brought me to my feet, trembling with excitement, to peer eagerly downward from my dizzy ledge.

3. Empty-headed, scatterbrained or frivolous.

   My new secretary is a dizzy blonde.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     the dizzy multitude

• dizzily
• dizziness
• dizzyingly

dizzy (third-person singular simple present dizzies, present participle dizzying, simple past and past participle dizzied)

1. (transitive) To make dizzy, to bewilder.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes, […], printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     , Folio Society, 2006, vol.1, p.161:

     Let me have this violence and compulsion removed, there is nothing that, in my seeming, doth more bastardise and dizzie a wel-borne and gentle nature […].

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Walter Scott

     If the jangling of thy bells had not dizzied thy understanding.

   • 2012 September 7, Dominic Fifield, “England start World Cup campaign with five-goal romp against Moldova”, in The Guardian:

     So ramshackle was the locals' attempt at defence that, with energetic wingers pouring into the space behind panicked full-backs and centre-halves dizzied by England's movement, it was cruel to behold at times. The contest did not extend beyond the half-hour mark.