sticky
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: business
computing
engineering
finance
manufacturing
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
Etymology: Etymology tree
English stick
English -y
English sticky
From stick + -y.
Inflected forms:
form: stickier
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: stickiest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: stickies
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: stickies
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: stickying
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: stickied
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: stickied
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Tending to stick; able to adhere via the drying of a viscous substance.
pos: adj
examples: Is this tape sticky enough to stay on that surface?
Particularly sticky books are cleaned with methylated spirits.
gloss: Difficult, awkward.
pos: adj
examples: This is a sticky situation. We could be in this for weeks if we're not careful.
GCN is not just another clipboard of polite press releases. GCN is the sticky questions, the sweet moments, and the dirty stories that make up our lives.
Among the books Mum brought me to read when I was a child were The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, as well as their author Frances Hodgson Burnett's smash hit, Little Lord Fauntleroy. I haven't met an adult my age who has read this book but I did so several times. It's a sticky book, guided by that strange Victorian obsession with "the little mother" – the same obsession that Virginia Woolf, a child of Victorian parents, grappled with in her diaries and her fiction. Somehow, though, I learned to overlook the archaic, to be open to the oddnesses of different eras, and to read for something else.
gloss: Of a death: unpleasant, grisly.
pos: adj
examples: Salmond studied medieval Scottish history as well as economics at university so he cannot say he has not had fair warning – it was even more turbulent and bloody than England at that time – and plenty of Scotland's kings and leaders came to a sticky end. If it happens this time, it won't be dull.
gloss: Of weather: hot and windless and with high humidity, so that people feel sticky from sweating.
pos: adj
examples: The baby was due in December and the hot, sticky August weather was making Jane uncomfortable.
gloss: Mawkish, sentimental.
pos: adj
examples: Love you and miss you and wish you all the sticky things one wishes at this season for someone one loves.
gloss: Tending to stay the same; resistant to change.
pos: adj
examples: a sticky price; sticky wages
gloss: Persistent.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: We should make the printing direction sticky so the user doesn't have to keep setting it.
gloss: Appearing on all virtual desktops.
pos: adj
gloss: Fixed at the top of the list of topics or threads so as to keep it in view.
pos: adj
tags: Internet
gloss: Compelling enough to keep visitors from leaving.
pos: adj
tags: Internet
examples: A woman has come to me with the complaint that her website is not sticky: 70% of the visits last 30 seconds or less.
gloss: Resembling or characteristic of a stick.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: What's something that is brown and sticky? A stick
gloss: A sticky note, such as a post-it note.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Her desk is covered with yellow stickies.
gloss: A discussion thread fixed at the top of the list of topics or threads so as to keep it in view.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
countable
uncountable
gloss: A small adhesive particle found in wastepaper.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A sweet dessert wine.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
colloquial
countable
uncountable
gloss: Sticky-icky; marijuana, especially the sticky, resin-covered buds.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
examples: We'd smoked some nice sticky that night and fucked with some Erk and Jerk too, so my head was still cloudy when Pimp came in the room and said get up.
Still smoking sticky, it ain't no other option / Not for made niggas, and I'm never stopping
As drunk as I was, all I could think about was getting some sticky down my lungs.
gloss: Wax.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
slang
uncountable
gloss: to fix a thread at the top of the list of topics or threads so as to keep it in view.
pos: verb
tags: Internet
transitive
Synonyms: tenacious
glutinous
muggy
sultry
Related words: tacky
Derived words: come to a sticky end
fermented sticky rice
meet a sticky end
nonsticky
stickily
stickiness
stickyback
sticky-backed plastic
sticky-back plastic
sticky bead argument
sticky beak
sticky-beak
stickybeak
sticky bit
sticky bomb
sticky bottle
sticky bun
sticky catchfly
sticky currant
sticky dog
sticky end
sticky-finger
sticky finger
sticky-fingered
sticky fingers
sticky foam
sticky-icky
sticky-note
sticky note
sticky-out
sticky-outy
sticky platelet syndrome
sticky rice
sticky rice wine
sticky shed syndrome
sticky situation
sticky skin syndrome
sticky-sweet
sticky-tape
sticky tape
sticky toffee pudding
sticky trap
sticky-up
sticky-uppy
stickyweed
sticky wicket
sticky willy
unsticky
Vietnamese fermented sticky rice
Translations: