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tricky

/ˈtrɪki/
/ˈtrɪki/
IPA guide

Other forms: trickier; trickiest

If something is tricky, it's difficult, like a tricky puzzle. And if a person is tricky, they're sneaky, skilled, or crafty, like a tricky magician who makes it look easy to pull quarters out of your ears.

A tricky riddle is extremely hard to figure out, and a tricky question on a math test is even trickier if you can't use a calculator to solve it. In their 1986 rap classic, "It's Tricky," Run-DMC claimed that "it's tricky...to rock a rhyme that's right on time" — or in other words, it's really difficult to write a clever rap lyric.

Definitions of tricky
  1. adjective
    having concealed difficulty
    “a tricky recipe to follow”
    synonyms: catchy
    difficult, hard
    not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure
  2. adjective
    marked by skill in deception
    artful
    marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft
  3. adjective
    not to be trusted
    synonyms: slippery
    untrustworthy, untrusty
    not worthy of trust or belief
Pronunciation
US
/ˈtrɪki/
UK
/ˈtrɪki/
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