Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Characterized by; consisting of: clayey.
- n. Like: summery.
- n. To some degree; somewhat; rather: chilly.
- n. Tending toward; inclined toward: sleepy.
- n. Condition; state; quality: jealousy.
- n. Activity: cookery.
- n. Instance of a specified action: entreaty.
- n. Place for an activity: cannery.
- n. Result or product of an activity: laundry.
- n. Collection; body; group: soldiery.
- n. Small one: doggy.
- n. Dear one: sweetie.
- n. One having to do with or characterized by: townie.
Wiktionary
- n. Added to nouns and adjectives to form adjectives meaning "having the quality of".
- n. Added to verbs to form adjectives meaning "inclined to".
- n. Variation of -ie added to nouns, adjectives and names to form terms of affection.
- n. Forming diminutive nouns. Also used for familiar and pet names.
- n. Forming abstract nouns denoting a state, condition, or quality.
- n. Used in the name of some locations which end in -ia in Latin.
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman and Middle French -ie and -e, from Latin -ia, -ium, -tas, Ancient Greek -ία. Cognate (as far as Latin -ia is involved) with German -ei and Dutch -ij. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English -ig.Middle English -ie, from Old French, from Latin -ia. Sense 2b, ultimately from Latin -ium.Middle English -ie, -y. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“An hour and a half of stand-up and about 40 minutes of my sh---y band, he says.”
Eddie Murphy in Rolling Stone: No More Kid Films, A Beverly Hills Cop TV Show?
“Sorry, with its -y suffix—meaning “full of” but also used to form pet names—seems more colloquial than regret.”
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“I know hockey coaches love to add a -y to the end of players' names, so I figured maybe he was referring to some player named Hinkshaw that i didn't know.”
“Let's bring these people to Radio Sh---y Music Hall tomorrow night and have a f---ing party," Sheen declared at his "Violent Torpedo of Truth" tour in”
“Al Green -y organ fills and the way Hamilton sings against the snap of the drums, as though the music all around him was a voice telling him what he doesn't want to hear: that the writing is on the wall, that the love affair is over.”
“Truly I can, not all the time, but I can take joy at really sh---y situations.”
“If you've been doing more and more browsing on your phone, then you've likely become used to having almost no "chrome," far more visual tab management, and a more immersive, less "desktop"-y, more manual browsing experience.”
“Walking into Sonar to escape the late-afternoon heat, Pulling Teeth at first felt like a comforting throwback - the kind of late-'90s Converge -y metallic hardcore that popped up a lot in my high-school years.”
“Anything that lived a sh---y life isn't going to give you as many nutrients as something that lived off the land and wasn't given antibiotics.”
“The rest of them are a somehow less creative form of hockey nicknames, which are generally just variants of the person's last name ending in -s, -ie -y or -er.”
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Tweets
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