sicker

• Rhymes: -ɪkə(ɹ)

• Audio (US)

  (file)

sick +‎ -er

sicker

1. The comparative form of sick: more sick.

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”).

• siker
• siccer
• siccar

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.

sicker

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

• sickerly
• sickerhood
• sickerness

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.

• sigger
• zigger

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.

• Rickes, Riecks, ickers, scrike

sicker

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

sicker

1. Alternative form of siker

sicker

1. Alternative form of siker