1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. tricky

Find the word definition

What is "tricky"

Crossword clues for tricky

tricky
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
tricky
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a tricky/tough question (=one that is difficult to answer)
▪ That’s a really tricky question.
difficult/tricky
▪ This book will show you how to deal with difficult situations.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
more
▪ Much more tricky than knowing if you've found a badger sett, is knowing whether or not it is still active.
▪ But deciding when to upgrade software is more tricky.
▪ The May Hill Stakes, frequently an early guide to the following year's Classics, is much more tricky to predict.
▪ The Bureau can make legal demands that MI5 would find much more tricky.
▪ The liberal-historians, on the other hand, tend to find themselves in a somewhat more tricky position.
▪ Also, and this is more tricky, we want to know what Riddle's financial position is.
▪ This was far more tricky than it sounds.
▪ So far, so good: but other objects are more tricky.
particularly
▪ Vans and estates are particularly tricky to repair.
▪ I found uphill kick turns particularly tricky.
very
▪ Finding out the exact proportions and method of preparation will take some time and be a very tricky operation.
▪ It is a very, very tricky area of the law.
▪ Male speaker Motor racing is very tricky.
▪ Take Scarlatti, for example; there are some very tricky sonatas which should not sound tricky at all.
▪ Some things are very tricky to explain.
▪ Oh, no fault of your own, it's a very tricky role.
▪ This was going to be very tricky.
▪ He must be very tricky to deal with, she thought darkly.
■ NOUN
area
▪ And on your way upstairs, don't forget the bannisters and those tricky areas in between the rails on your staircase.
▪ It is a very, very tricky area of the law.
▪ The only tricky areas are, of course, anything amiss dead centre - or, of course, anything wrong with the brain.
▪ Music as a background for drama is a much trickier area, but you should err on the side of understatement.
▪ Education is the trickiest area, because of constant arguments over when segregated schooling is justifiable.
▪ This can be a very tricky area as most people are self.conscious in front of the camera.
bit
▪ Its physical manoeuvrability makes it easy to demonstrate syllable structure or to emphasise tricky bits.
▪ How had Lisa managed that tricky bit at the end of the first act?
▪ The tricky bit is that twist at the end of the first act.
▪ Half way through this tricky bit some one knocked over the light.
business
▪ Very tricky business being a private shamus.
▪ Money experts now begin the tricky business of divining the fate of the economy.
▪ Naturally, the tricky business of welding the Germanies together could still bring nasty surprises.
▪ This is tricky business unless you know what you are doing and are very careful.
▪ Detecting them is a tricky business, especially in unfamiliar cultures and languages.
▪ This made communication between O &038; M and the rest a tricky business, to be handled very carefully.
▪ But running doubles is a tricky business.
▪ Marketing the lottery has always been a tricky business.
issue
▪ It is a tricky issue that may yet drag on for months.
▪ It is a tricky issue but somewhat irrelevant since almost nobody is that interested in classrooms, least of all television journalists.
▪ Political dilemma Underground work is a tricky issue for all governments.
▪ There are tricky issues of national sovereignty and private / public relationships but they are not insoluble.
part
▪ The tricky part was the mower.
▪ The tricky part is tipping the ski at the right angle so all six people drink at the same time without spillage.
▪ It's maintaining the diet for longer and keeping the weight off which is the tricky part.
▪ But the tricky part was taking off and putting on the cables.
▪ The trickiest parts was keeping the feet with their fearsome claws underneath the body while she was lashed up like a parcel.
question
▪ Transfer between hierarchies is a complex procedure, often raising tricky questions concerning the loss or preservation of seniority rights.
▪ A tricky question is who qualifies as household help.
▪ Finally, the allocation of the overheads raises some tricky questions.
▪ That went quickly enough with no tricky questions.
▪ The tricky question would be the unit pricing structure.
▪ The trickier question is: can Britain's businesses make the required switch into exports?
▪ He also had to answer some tricky questions from the floor of the historic debating chamber.
▪ Then there is the tricky question of forward market operations.
situation
▪ A captain goes last on to his ship, but a man goes first into a tricky situation.
▪ But the chilly economic climate has made a tricky situation desperate, in two respects.
▪ The clearer you are about your behavioural rights the better prepared you are to handle tricky situations assertively.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
awkward/tricky/tough etc customer
▪ A tough customer, a man to be reckoned with.
▪ But he'd take on some one like Glenda Grower, who's a much tougher customer.
▪ But the tough treatment was only for tough customers.
▪ He's overcome some genuinely tough customers, but Gimenez was abject.
▪ He looks a tough customer to deal with.
▪ The next, you're making speeches to the wind. Tricky customers, ordinary people.
be a different/tricky/simple etc proposition
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Getting everyone to use the new technology will be tricky.
▪ Getting the two sides of the mobile to balance is tricky.
▪ It would be very tricky to try to stabilize the region without the support of other countries.
▪ Refuelling a plane in mid air is a tricky business.
▪ Teachers often have to deal with tricky situations such as interviews with angry parents.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But as a headache remedy, caffeine can be tricky to manage.
▪ For customers, the choice is trickier.
▪ It is not to any degree tricky, subtle, or surreal.
▪ Its physical manoeuvrability makes it easy to demonstrate syllable structure or to emphasise tricky bits.
▪ Oh, no fault of your own, it's a very tricky role.
▪ Some unnecessarily tricky camera work early on is taxing, as is the film's glacial pace.
▪ What is a little tricky about Easter is the date, which varies yearly.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Tricky

Tricky \Trick"y\, a. Given to tricks; practicing deception; trickish; knavish.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
tricky

1786, "characterized by tricks," from trick (n.) + -y (2). Meaning "deceptively difficult" is from 1868. Related: Trickily; trickiness. Earlier was tricksy (1590s).

Wiktionary
tricky

a. hard to deal with, complicated

Related phrases:
WordNet
tricky

  1. adj. not to be trusted; "how extraordinarily slippery a liar the camera is"- James Agee; "they called Reagan the teflon president because mud never stuck to him" [syn: slippery, teflon]

  2. having concealed difficulty; "a catchy question"; "a tricky recipe to follow" [syn: catchy]

  3. marked by skill in deception; "cunning men often pass for wise"; "deep political machinations"; "a foxy scheme"; "a slick evasive answer"; "sly as a fox"; "tricky Dik"; "a wily old attorney" [syn: crafty, cunning, dodgy, foxy, guileful, knavish, slick, sly, tricksy, wily]

  4. [also: trickiest, trickier]

Wikipedia
Tricky (musician)

Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws (born 27 January 1968), better known by his stage name Tricky, is an English record producer, vocalist, director, actor, and musician. He began his career as an early collaborator of Massive Attack before embarking on a solo career with his debut album, Maxinquaye, in 1995. The release won Tricky popular acclaim and marked the beginning of a lengthy collaborative partnership with vocalist Martina Topley-Bird. He released four more studio albums before the end of the decade, including Pre-Millennium Tension and the pseudonymous Nearly God, both in 1996. He has gone on to release six studio albums since 2000, most recently the self-titled Adrian Thaws (2014).

Often considered a pioneer of the trip hop style that rose to prominence in the UK during the 1990s, Tricky is noted for his dark, layered musical style that draws on disparate cultural influences and genres, including hip hop, alternative rock and ragga. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists over the course of his career, including Terry Hall, Björk, Gravediggaz, Grace Jones, Massive Attack and PJ Harvey.

Tricky

Tricky may refer to:

  • Tricky (musician), an English producer and trip hop musician
  • Tricky (TV series), a Saturday morning ITV children's television series
  • Tricky TV, an ITV children's television magic series
  • Tricky Hill, a summit in Missouri
  • SSX Tricky, the second game in the SSX series
  • Tricky Nichols (1850–1897), American baseball pitcher
  • Tricky Stewart (born 1974), American music producer
  • Tricky, a character in Star Fox Adventures
Tricky (TV series)

Tricky was a British children's animated television programme that aired in the ITV Network's children's strand CITV on Saturday mornings from 30 August to 20 December 1997. It was the first live children's show hosted by an animated character - a talking dragon named Tricky. His co-host was a strange dragon-cat hybrid, who hatched from an egg in the third show, and was called 'Purrdy' because of a competition won by a 5-year-old girl from Dunoon, Leanne Campbell. Claudia Winkleman made frequent appearances on the show, and Tricky would usually call her 'Claudia Winklebottom'. The second edition of Tricky was pre-empted by Princess Diana's funeral. The showed was produced by Real Time Animation for Granada Television.

The show didn't prove to be all that popular, and only lasted for one series. But Tricky made a comeback to TV screens in 2003; he was renamed 'Rorry', though Purrdy kept her name, and hosted the kid's channel POP!.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "tricky".

Standard Operational Procedure, but the tricky Maser amplification was the first ever.

The answer is simple--you probably knew it immediately--but as one learns around the Exploratorium, simple answers can be as tricky as mirrors.

You know the tricky little bastard depends on misdirection, or getting a man to think along natural lines while he pulls something plain logic would never lead one to expect.

The peloton was still bunched up, full of banging and maneuvering, and it would be a tricky crossing.

Creating the viruses would be a tricky but not impossible problem in plasmid engineering.

With their help they wrenched the wagon around, although it was a tricky business on the narrow road, with the land falling away steeply on one side and rising precipitously on the other.

He came from living and working in an equally tricky and prehensible world.

She struck Yellowjacket with her quirt and sent him sidling past the wagon and the tricky Caroline, too stubborn to answer her dad when he called after her that she had better ride behind the load.

It is a long harbour with a dog-leg in it and a precious narrow mouth protected by a broad mole and two batteries, one on each side, and another of 24-pounders high up on Bear: a tricky piece of navigation, to take a ship in or out with their infernal tramontane blowing right across the narrow mouth, but an excellent sheltered harbour inside with deep water up to the quays.

The delta of the Rio Colorado has always been tricky for to navigate, and they tell me that lately, since your Anglo settlers have been drawing irrigation water from its tributaries, it has gotten worse.

He entered the billiard room and found Marvin Kelford, in shirt sleeves and eye shade, practicing a very tricky reverse English shot.

The skill was in stopping it, which involved progressive demagnetization and was very tricky.

Chaos knows that slipping the germs of self-determination past the Fates was a tricky bit of business for the Goddess of Fortune and me.

The small but very bright moon which the Harmonites called The Eye of the Lord was just rising, and throwing, through the ruined walls, alternate patches of tricky silver and black.

Students of the inheritance of mental and moral traits may be interested to note that while the ordinary Chinese mestizo in the Philippines is a man of probity, who has the high regard of his European business associates, the Ilocanos, supposed descendants of pirates, are considered rather tricky and dishonest.