# How did we come up with "icky"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403 "2026-09-26T17:20:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/1 "2026-09-26T17:20:11Z")
It doesn’t seem to have any basis I can think of. Is it used only in the US? And don’t give me any fish story. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/2 "2026-09-26T17:32:27Z")
We needed an antonym to “snack”. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/3 "2026-09-26T17:46:02Z")
> **[Icky - Etymology, Origin & Meaning](https://www.etymonline.com/word/icky)** > > "sickly, nauseated," which probably is a baby talk elaboration of sick (adj.). Originally… See origin and meaning of icky. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/4 "2026-09-26T18:17:26Z")
I made it up. You can ask anyone. 😄 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/5 "2026-09-26T18:25:19Z")
For reasons I can’t imagine, Americans had a fad for baby talk after WWI. That etymonline link puts “icky-boo” around 1920. Helen Kane became famed for her baby talk routine and “boop-oop-a-doop” catchphrase, which spawned the Betty Boop of cartoons. Dorothy Parker spoofed Winnie the Pooh with: > _“And it is that word ‘hummy,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.”_ It lasted quite a while. In the 1932 _Horsefeathers_, college widow Connie tries to sweet talk college president Groucho into revealing football secrets. > **Connie:** “If icky baby don’t learn about the football signals, icky baby gonna cwy.” > > **Professor Wagstaff:** “If icky girl keep on talking that way, big stwong man’s gonna kick all of her teef wight down her fwoat.” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2026, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/6 "2026-09-27T16:25:41Z")
Yeah, as this example illustrates, “icky” in US-English “baby talk” (like synonymous “ickle”, see e.g. _Seventeen_ (1916) by Booth Tarkington) seems to have originated as a variant of “little”, rather than in its later sense of “disgusting, displeasing”. How the transition in meaning seems to have happened, according to [Lexicographer at Large](https://www.suebutler.com.au/new-words/2021/11/8/the-ick): > [@](#): > > It is clear that _ick_ comes from _icky_ but at this point the Oxford English Dictionary throws up its hands in helplessness and says ‘origin uncertain’. However, the example sentences show that _icky_ was a word of the jazz scene in America in the 1930s and described music that was over-sweet and sentimental, music that a true lover of swing jazz despised. The suggestion is that _icky_ was pretend baby talk meaning ‘little’. > > From bad music _icky_ progressed to cover anything that was disgusting, that produced a slight recoil and a wrinkled nose. _Icky-boo_ meant ‘ill’. (And in fairness to A.A. Milne, there really isn’t any baby-talk per se in the Pooh books, just plenty of Whimsical Neologisms and Spurious Capitalization. Parker, of course, was a reviewer with a notoriously low whimsy tolerance.) ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/7 "2026-09-28T21:49:30Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > And don’t give me any fish story. Participation excluded on a technicality. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/8 "2026-09-28T22:41:27Z")
Interesting, as I thought it came from just a disgust reaction onomatapeia, at least in part. My sighs can sound like ichhh. I had heard of ickle being baby talk for little, but I do wonder how it got from there to disgust. I find myself wondering if there aren’t two parallel origins. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/9 "2026-09-28T23:08:16Z")
My Aunt had a Lhasa/shih tzu mix named Icky when I was a kid. That little dog is all I think about when I hear that word. I have no idea where she came up with the name. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/10 "2026-09-28T23:14:40Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I have no idea where she came up with the name. Did the dog shuffle? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2026, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/11 "2026-09-28T23:19:37Z")
I always thought it was derived from the Knights who say “Ekke Ekke Ekke Ekke Ptang Zoo Boing!” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/12 "2026-09-29T02:10:19Z")
Actually, looks like we can push back the use of “icky” to mean “repulsive” somewhat earlier than those 1930s citations. The 1929 early sound film _The Great Gabbo_ with Erich von Stroheim has a ventriloquist’s dummy (long story) singing “The Lollipop Song” which includes these lyrics ([starting about 0:26:30](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Gabbo_(1929).webm)): > [@](#): > > I’d rather suck on a lemon drop than to try my luck with a lollipop, > 'Cause I always drop my lollipop, und it gets all over icky. > Oh it makes me sick with the way it schmears, how the stuff will schtick in your hair and ears, > With a lemon bean I’m always clean, but a lollipop, ooh, icky. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/13 "2026-09-29T17:01:45Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Actually, looks like we can push back the use of “icky” to mean “repulsive” somewhat earlier than those 1930s citations. Very nice! ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2026, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-we-come-up-with-icky/1033403/14 "2026-09-30T16:14:54Z")
ISWYD Both of you.