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OneKitly

risky

adjectivecommon in dialogue

  • //ˈɹɪski//

Dangerous; involving risks.

adjective

  1. 1

    Dangerous; involving risks.

    Near-synonyms: hazardous, dangerous, perilous, unsafe, daredevil

    Investing in this start-up company could be risky.

    Jumping on the train from the bridge to catch the terrorist was a highly risky operation.

  2. 2

    obsoleteRisqué.

    Have you no risky songs, no indecent ballads?

  3. 3

    Variant of risquéMisspelling of risqué.

    That awkward moment when someone doesn't reply to your risky text message.

    Ronald Frankau (pronounced Franco) wrote a few risky songs, such as FANNY'S BEEN EVACUATED NOW with the line “and for half a pound of butter, well a lady's got to eat” ~ he got banned for it.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Italic *wre- Latin re- Proto-Indo-European *sek-der. Proto-Italic *sekaō Latin seco Latin resecōdeverb. Vulgar Latin *resecum Old Italian riscobor. ▲ Old Italian risco Italian rischio Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Italian -are Italian rischiarebor. Middle French risquebor. English risque English risk Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English risky From risk + -y.

Forms

comparative
riskier
superlative
riskiest
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).