Where does “tricky” come from?

Tricky comes from Middle English -y, Middle French -ie, Latin -ia, Latin -ivus, and Proto-Indo-European -kos, a suffix forming adjectives from noun and verb roots.

tricky (English): hard to deal with, complicated; adept at using...

Definitions

  1. hard to deal with, complicated; adept at using...

Ancestry of “tricky”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1English-yAdded to nouns and adjectives to form adjectives...
2Middle English-yDesignates an adjective, in many cases formed by...
3Old English-iġ-y, -ic
4Proto-West Germanic-gForms adjectives from nouns and verbs with a...
5Proto-Germanic-gaz-y
6Proto-Indo-European-ḱos-y, -ic

Words derived from “tricky”

Every word from Proto-Indo-European -ḱos →Every word from English -y →Every word from Old English -iġ →