dodgy

adjective

ˈdä-jē 

1

chiefly British : evasive, tricky

2

chiefly British

a

: not sound, good, or reliable

b

: questionable, suspicious

3

chiefly British : requiring skill or care in handling or coping with

dodginess

ˈdä-jē-nəs 

noun

Synonyms

• catchy
• delicate
• difficult
• hairy
• knotty
• nasty
• prickly
• problematic
• problematical
• sensitive
• spiny
• sticky
• thorny
• ticklish
• touchy
• tough
• tricksy
• tricky

Examples of dodgy in a Sentence

The car's got a dodgy engine.

They got into a dodgy situation.

Recent Examples on the Web

Trump is amassing what may be the most inexperienced Cabinet in decades, one with more skeletons afoot than a cemetery and dodgy odds of getting through en masse. —Philip Elliott, TIME, 25 Nov. 2024

Browsers like Google Chrome and Apple's Safari come with a whole host of security protections to identify dodgy websites, protect you from nasty downloads, and block bad code from running in your browser. —David Nield, WIRED, 18 Sep. 2024

This makes dodgy unlicensed Lightning cables all the more problematic. —Andrew Williams, WIRED, 16 Sep. 2020

Disregarding the inevitable dodgy attempts at uncovering some magic way to hack into someone else’s account, the majority are still likely to be genuine requests for help. —Davey Winder, Forbes, 9 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1861, in the meaning defined at sense 1