rocky
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Encountering many problems.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rahkeeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹɑki
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Abounding in, or full of, rocks; consisting of rocks.
figuratively
Encountering many problems; difficult, troubled; also, in danger or distress.
Like a rock; rigid, solid.
Easily rocked; unstable.
In the style of rock music.
Of an animal or plant
Having a habitat around or on rocks.
noun
A diminutive of the male given names Robert, Ricky, Rocco, Roch, or Rock.
Rocky Balboa, a fictional boxer in a series of films.
informal
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a motion picture.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
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How this word commonly comes across.
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More ways to use rocky
- “The path to the waterfall was quite rocky and uneven.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The chief mountain range of western North America.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
An attendant who rocks a child in a cradle.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Small maple of northwestern North America.
Plant of western North America having trifoliate leaves and white or pink spider-shaped flowers.
Wild sheep of mountainous regions of western North America having massive curled horns.
Small slow-growing upland pine of western United States (Rocky Mountains) having dense branches with fissured rust-brown bark and short needles in bunches of 5 and thorn-tipped cone scales.
North American plant similar to common dogbane.
Sure-footed mammal of mountainous northwestern North America.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Found around rocky coasts or on reefs.
Pink-flowered perennial of rocky regions of western United States.
Hyrax that lives in rocky areas.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.