sicker

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English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English siker, sikker, sykkere, secre, seccre, from Old English sēocra (sicker), equivalent to sick +‎ -er.

Adjective

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sicker

  1. comparative form of sick: more sick.

Etymology 2

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From Middle English siker, from Old English sicer, sicor, from Proto-West Germanic *sikur (free, secure), from Latin sēcūrus (secure, literally without care). Doublet of sure and secure.

Alternative forms

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Adjective

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sicker

  1. (obsolete outside dialects) Certain.
    I'm sicker that he's not home.
  2. (obsolete outside dialects) Secure, safe.
    To walk a sicker path
    • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “September. Ægloga Nona.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: [], London: [] Hugh Singleton, [], →OCLC, folio 36, recto:
      But ſicker ſo it is, as the bꝛight ſtarre / Seemeth ay greater, when it is farre:
    • 1880, L.B. Walford, “Dick Netherby”, in Good Words[1], volume 22, Alexander Strahan and Company, page 774:
      And here was we made sicker than he was wi' you []
    • 1896, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, chapter XVII, in The Raiders: Being Some Passages in the Life of John Faa, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt[2], Macmillan and Company, page 125:
      I'm as great on the side o' the law as it's siccar to be in thae uncertain times.

Adverb

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sicker

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

Derived terms

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Etymology 3

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From Middle English *sikeren (attested only as sikeriez ((it) trickles, (it) leaks, (it) oozes)), from Old English sicerian (to ooze, seep), from Proto-West Germanic *sikarōn, from Proto-Germanic *sikarōną (to trickle), from Proto-Germanic *sīką (slow running water). Cognate with German Low German sickern (to seep), German sickern (to seep, trickle). Akin also to English sitch.

Alternative forms

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Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, literal, figurative) To percolate, trickle, or seep; to ooze, as water through a crack.
    • 1917, Gerhart Hauptmann, Ludwig Lewisohn, The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann, volume 7, page 185:
      No drop of water fell from the hot blue
      Or sickered from the skeleton of earth.
    • 1926, Jakob Wassermann, Wedlock, volume 10, page 217:
      This cause had sickered into his soul; it had been branded upon his forehead somehow, by some hand; he knew not how nor by whom.
    • 1943, Acta minerologica, petrographica, volumes 1-11, page 17:
      The solution steadily sickered through the debris and the sampling of the solutions could be carried out without taking the equipment into pieces.

References

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Anagrams

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German

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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sicker

  1. inflection of sickern:
    1. first-person singular present
    2. singular imperative

Middle English

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Adjective

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sicker

  1. Alternative form of siker

Adverb

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sicker

  1. Alternative form of siker