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出典:Wiktionary
出典:『Wiktionary』 (2026/04/07 02:32 UTC 版)
From 中期英語 wicked, wikked, an alteration of 中期英語 wicke, wikke (“morally perverse, evil, wicked”). Of uncertain origin. Possibly from an adjectival use of 古期英語 wiċċa (“wizard, sorcerer”), from Proto-West Germanic *wikkō (“necromancer, sorcerer”), though the phonology makes this theory difficult to explain. Alternatively, perhaps related to English wicker, Old Norse víkja (“to bend to, yield, turn, move”), Swedish vika (“to bend, fold, give way to”), English weak.
The "excellent, awesome" sense is an ameliorative semantic shift from the original sense of "evil, mischievous". Compare similar semantic development in terrific and sick.
wicked (comparative wickeder or more wicked, superlative wickedest or most wicked)
wicked (not comparable)
It would appear that wicked was originally used in and around Boston, MA, as the intensifying adverb in adjectival phrases qualifying especially (though by no means exclusively) positive adjectives, that is, adjectives describing the goodness and desirability of things or situations; it was never used adverbially in the qualification of verbs. Over time, phrases like "wicked good", "wicked awesome", and "wicked strong", and the highly idiomatic "wicked pissah" were often shortened by New Englanders (for whom brevity in speech may be viewed as a cultural imperative) to simply "wicked" by means of phrasal clipping. In this way, adverbial "wicked" gained an adjectival sense in its own right meaning "great"/"superlative". What is or was special to Boston and the Northeast is usage as an adverb (in adjectival phrases) and as an adjective, not the usage thereof only as an adverb. It should be noted that the Merriam-Webster and American Heritage dictionaries no longer label the adverbial usage, in qualifying/intensifying adjectives, a regionalism.
Use of "wicked" as an adjective (in the sense of "extreme, awesome") rather than an intensifying adverb ("extremely, very") is sometimes considered an error when it is used to suggest a Boston or Northeast dialect. In fact, this is not necessarily true in the case of Bostonians born in the 1960s and 70s (and perhaps later) or in other New England dialects. "That's a wicked car" is perhaps used mostly by older Bostonians, but "that car's wicked" and especially "(that's) wicked!" (in the sense of "fantastic, awesome, great") are common in Boston.
wicked
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