sicko
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsɪkəʊ/
ipa: /ˈsɪkoʊ/
rhymes: -ɪkəʊ
Forms: form: sickos
form: sickoes
Etymology: From sick + -o (“person with characteristic”).
Senses: examples: text: 1986 June 9, David Denby, Movies: Poison, New York, page 130,
But in fact, the murders have been committed by an army of sickos, a phalanx of wild-eyed droolers led by a monster goon with a concrete jaw and a Neanderthal brow.
text: 1997, Shannon Bell, Chapter 5: On ne peut pas voir l′image [The image cannot be seen], Brenda Cossman, Shannon Bell, Lise Gotell, Becki L. Ross, Bad Attitude/s on Trial: Pornography, Feminism, and the Butler Decision, page 231,
We can′t say that it is our responses of horror and revulsion that are upsetting to the youth; therefore, those attracted to them are deviants, sickos, who should be cured/punished like the homosexuals of the forties and fifties.
text: The conservative Boston Herald, which had earlier described the revelations about Barney′s two-year relationship with a male prostitute as “one of the most tawdry episodes in modern Massachusetts politics” and had run a story by the columnist Howie Carr calling Frank “a sicko who happens to be a pol,” urged him to resign his house seat.
ref: 2009, Stuart E. Weisberg, Barney Frank: The Story of America′s Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman, page 372:
glosses: A person with unpleasant tastes, views or habits.
examples: text: So come on, doc, precisely which kind of sicko is America? You might plump for depressed (isolationist), psychopathic (lack of empathy) or even psychotic (barking mad - what P.G. Wodehouse referred to as "thinking you're a poached egg").
ref: 2003, Adbusters:
text: You're a gambler, huh? A sicko like Essay?
ref: 2011, Rick Bennet, King of a Small World: A Poker Novel, →ISBN:
text: It was at this time that the lesbian "sicko" became the dominant image of the woman who loved other women and curing lesbians on the couch became a big business in America.
ref: 2012, Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, →ISBN, page 130:
text: I couldn't hide that I was a sicko and different from the norm. I couldn't handle a full course load. I had to scale back. I felt weak, worthless, and nothing cam easily anymore.
ref: 2012, Lenore Rowntree, Andrew Boden, Hidden Lives: Coming Out on Mental Illness, →ISBN, page 101:
text: Every so often, I find myself with the urge to make sure people know that I am not just on Prozac but on lithium too, that I am a real sicko, a depressive of a much higher order than all these happy-pill poppers with their low-level sorrow.
ref: 2014, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, →ISBN, page 317:
glosses: A mentally ill person.
examples: text: The amazing Mr. Sick Day [Milo Filbum] has missed an amazing 73% of 1,020 work days for such ailments as a toothache, [...] "I finally gave the sicko his walking papers when other people started doing the same thing — calling in sick and all," the manager [said] ...
ref: 1993, Weekly World News, page 5:
text: Sicko status: Can you keep going even when you're feeling out of sorts?
ref: 2007, James Moore, Judi James, How to be a Teenage Millionaire, →ISBN:
text: Sickos: If it seems like your toddler is always sick, it's because they are.
ref: 2008, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, Naptime Is the New Happy Hour: And Other Ways Toddlers Turn Your Upside Down, →ISBN:
text: You are worried about getting sick yourself, but the etiquette of asking someone to go home or to stay in bed is tricky to navigate. Some of your colleagues are ready to march the snot-nosed sicko out the door, but you wonder just how much of a problem it really is to breathe the same air.
ref: 2011, Aaron E. Carroll, Rachel C. Vreeman, Don't Cross Your Eyes...They'll Get Stuck That Way!:
glosses: A physically ill person.
Synonyms: sense: person with unpleasant tastes, views or habits
word: weirdo