crikey

«crikey» in Mova's school dictionary: a cry of surprise or alarm, like «wow!» or «goodness!»… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

interjection (crikey)

meaning for a pupil

(informal, euphemism) a cry of surprise or alarm, like «wow!» or «goodness!»; originally a soft stand-in for «Christ». tree →

sense in the lessons

Mild, friendly, old-fashioned British and Australian exclamation; heard in comics, children's books, wildlife shows. Safe in most company.

examples

• Crikey, that's a big spider! tree →
• Crikey, I forgot my homework! tree →
• Crikey, look at the time! tree →
• «Crikey!» said the explorer when he saw the crocodile. tree →
• Crikey, it's hot today. tree →
• Crikey Moses, what was that noise? tree →

note

Mild and safe. Nobody thinks of its religious origin today. Sounds British or Australian.

In the corpora

• "Crikey" is a mild word used instead of "Christ"; it is British and Australian.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «crikey» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.