different between wicked vs graceless

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English wicked, wikked, an alteration of Middle English wicke, wikke (“morally perverse, evil, wicked”). Possibly from an adjectival use of Old English wi??a (“wizard, sorcerer”), from Proto-Germanic *wikkô (“necromancer, sorcerer”), though the phonology makes this theory difficult to explain.

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?k??d, IPA^(key): /?w?k?d/

Adjective

wicked (comparative wickeder or more wicked, superlative wickedest or most wicked)

1. Evil or mischievous by nature.

   Synonyms: evil, immoral, malevolent, malicious, nefarious, twisted, villainous; see also Thesaurus:evil

2. (slang) Excellent; awesome; masterful.

   Synonyms: awesome, bad, cool, dope, excellent, far out, groovy, hot, rad; see also Thesaurus:excellent

Usage notes

Use of "wicked" as an adjective rather than an adverb is considered an error in the Boston dialect. However, that is not necessarily the case in other New England dialects.

Derived terms

• wickedly
• wickedness
• wicked tongue

Translations

Adverb

wicked (not comparable)

1. (slang, New England, Britain) Very, extremely.

   Synonyms: hella, helluv (both Californian/regional, and both potentially considered mildly vulgar)

Translations

Etymology 2

See wick.

Pronunciation

• enPR: w?kt, IPA^(key): /w?kt/

Verb

wicked

1. simple past tense and past participle of wick

Adjective

wicked (not comparable)

1. Having a wick.

Derived terms

• multiwicked

Etymology 3

See wick.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?w?k?d/

Adjective

wicked

1. (Britain, dialect, obsolete) Active; brisk.
2. (Britain, dialect, chiefly Yorkshire) Infested with maggots.
3. Alternative form of wick, as applying to inanimate objects only.

References

Middle English

Adjective

wicked

1. Alternative form of wikked

English

Etymology

From Middle English graceles; equivalent to grace +? -less.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???e?sl?s/

Adjective

graceless (comparative more graceless, superlative most graceless)

1. Without grace.
   • 1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Sonnet XXXII, "Equal Troth," in The House of Life, [1]:

     Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love; / For how should I be loved as I love thee? — / I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely / All gifts that with thy queenship best behove; — [...]

   • 1972, Roland Barthes, "Toys" in Mythologies (1957), translated by Annette Lavers, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, p. 54,

     Current toys are made of a graceless material, the product of chemistry, not of nature.

   • 1995, Susan Sontag, "The Art of Fiction No. 143," Interview with Edward Hirsch published in The Paris Review, No. 137, Winter, 1995, p. 7,

     [Hirsch:] Do you mind being called an intellectual? [Sontag:] Well, one never likes to be called anything. [...] I suppose there will always be a presumption of graceless oddity—especially if one is a woman.

2. Lacking gracefulness
   • 1961, Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy, New York: Signet, p. 64,

     The boy sketched his roughhewn young contadino just in from the fields, naked except for his brache, kneeling to take off his clodhoppers; the flesh tones a sunburned amber, the figure clumsy, with graceless bumpkin muscles; but the face transfused with light as the young lad gazed up at John.

3. (archaic) Unfortunate.

Synonyms

• clumsy

Antonyms

• graceful

Derived terms

• gracelessly
• gracelessness