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The Varied Meanings of Sketchy
A sketch is a rough drawing usually done as an initial draft in contrast to a finished work. The word sketch suggests imperfection and a lack of refinement. It comes from the Dutch word schets and ultimately from the Italian verb schizzare, an imitative verb meaning "to splash."
Unsurprisingly, the adjective sketchy originally described something relating to or resembling a sketch, as in "a sketchy portrait." But because sketches are by nature rough and ill-defined, sketchy soon came to mean "wanting in completeness, clearness, or substance," as in "a sketchy understanding" or "sketchy details."
What lacks completeness, clearness, or substance is also subject to doubt or challenge, and sketchy went on to develop uses applying to what is questionable or iffy, either for physically obvious qualities or for something less tangible. In sports we see this sense of sketchy applied to a track or surface that is poorly maintained, as in "a sketchy track," and in broader use it is applied to streets and neighborhoods that can also be described as seedy, as in "a sketchy part of town."
The adjective has more recently extended in use to describe someone who creates an impression of unsavoriness, or something that comes from an untrustworthy source or is itself untrustworthy, as in "a sketchy dude" or "a scheme that sounds sketchy."
Examples of sketchy in a Sentence
John Annese, New York Daily News, 16 Mar. 2025
For those still doing sketchy Survivor math in their heads long after the episode finished in the hopes of finally unscrambling everything, the host offered a fuller explanation on the latest episode of his On Fire With Jeff Probst podcast.
—Dalton Ross, EW.com, 13 Mar. 2025
While details remain sketchy on the criteria the administration plans to use, those familiar with the pending travel ban say it is supposedly based on the rationale that the countries that make the list lack the ability to properly perform background checks on individuals traveling to the U.S.
—Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald, 12 Mar. 2025
This type of data analysis can be sketchy because the more filters one imposes, the sparser the dataset becomes.
—Michael Khouw, CNBC, 6 Mar. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Sketchy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sketchy. Accessed 22 Mar. 2025.
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