/ˈdɪzi/
OriginFrom Middle English dysy, desy, dusi, from Old English dysiġ (“stupid, foolish”), from Proto-West Germanic *dusīg (“stunned; dazed”), likely from the root of Proto-Germanic *dwēsaz (“foolish, stupid”).
Akin to West Frisian dize (“fog”), Dutch deusig, duizig (“dizzy”), duizelig (“dizzy”), German dösig (“sleepy; stupid”).
- Experiencing a sensation of whirling and of being giddy, unbalanced, or lightheaded.
“I stood up too fast and felt dizzy.”
“Alas! his brain was dizzy.”
- Producing giddiness.
“We climbed to a dizzy height.”
“To climb from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder.”
“...faintly from the valley far below came an unmistakable sound which brought me to my feet, trembling with excitement, to peer eagerly downward from my dizzy ledge.”
- Empty-headed, scatterbrained or frivolous; ditzy.
“My new secretary is a dizzy blonde.”
“the dizzy multitude”
- UK, Yorkshire, dialectalsimple, half-witted.
“Them as diz ’at is dizzy.” — Those who do that are half-witted.
- transitiveTo make (someone or something) dizzy; to bewilder.
“Let me have this violence and compulsion removed, there is nothing that, in my seeming, doth more bastardise and dizzie a wel-borne and gentle nature […]”
“If the jangling of thy bells had not dizzied thy understanding.”
“So ramshackle was the locals' attempt at defence that, with energetic wingers pouring into the space behind panicked full-backs and centre-halves dizzied by England's movement, it was cruel to behold ”
- slangA distributor (device in internal combustion engine).
“A service exchange distributor usually needs to be ordered by a motor factor and cost £150-200! I would suggest you use the SD1 dizzy body/cap etc but change the trigger mechanism to a modern electron”
- UK, humorous, slangBenjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, and twice prime minister of the United Kingdom.
- A nickname.
Formsdizzier(comparative) · dizziest(superlative) · dizzie(alternative) · dizzies(present, singular, third-person) · dizzying(participle, present) · dizzied(participle, past) · dizzied(past) · dizzies(plural) · Dizzys(plural) · Dizzies(plural)