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dodgy

adjectiveattested in dialogue

  • //ˈdɒd͡ʒ.i//

Evasive and shifty.

adjective

  1. 1

    Evasive and shifty.

    Asked why, a spokesman gave a dodgy answer about legal ramifications.

  2. 2

    Unsound and unreliable.

    Never listen to dodgy advice.

    The dodgy old machine kept breaking down.

  3. 3

    Dishonest.

    The more money the better, because there is always that dodgy politician or corrupt official to bribe.

    I am sure you wouldn't want to be seen buying dodgy gear, would you? (stolen goods).

    No doubt you’re tired of reading about his colourful escapades – about his glamorous home, his allegedly dodgy tenderpreneur deals, his gushing praise of malevolent dictators, or his soundly articulated international economic policy.

  4. 4

    Risky.

    This is a slightly dodgy plan, because there is a lot that is being changed for this fix.

    “The market is getting edgier and edgier, and what is accepted in the marketplace gets dodgier and dodgier,” said Martin E. Abrams, the executive director of the Center for Information Policy Leadership at the law firm Hunton & Williams, a research organization financed by companies like Google, Microsoft and Best Buy.

  5. 5

    Deviant.

    He's a dodgy Peeping Tom.

  6. 6

    Uncomfortable and weird.

    The situation was right dodgy.

    I'm feeling dodgy today, probably got the flu.

    Churchill's own forefathers were among the dodgiest of the lot -- one a spendthrift, another a child molester, a third so reclusive that he went three years without saying a word.

Etymology

From dodge (verb) + -y. First used in mid-19th century England.

Forms

comparative
dodgier
superlative
dodgiest
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).