Quacky

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    That resembles the quack of a duck.

    "With progressive prostration (which is more marked in young infants) and with a tone to the cry which is a sort of a thin, crowing, quacky sound, points to the existence of retropharyngeal lymphadenitis."

  2. 2
    Fraudulent; characterised by or using the methods of quackery.

    "The Doctor says that some of the quackiest of the quacks are in the army."

  3. 3
    Infested with quackgrass. US

    "1859, The Cultivator, Volume 7, 3rd Series, page 54, After the first hoeing of a quacky crop, it is often well to go over it lightly in the middle of a hot day, just skimming the surface of the soil, and cutting off the young grass."

Example

More examples

"With progressive prostration (which is more marked in young infants) and with a tone to the cry which is a sort of a thin, crowing, quacky sound, points to the existence of retropharyngeal lymphadenitis."

Etymology

From quack + -y.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.