What it means
Dodgy is the go to word for anything that feels off, sketchy, or likely to go wrong. You can have a dodgy bloke, a dodgy kebab, a dodgy charger, or a dodgy deal. It covers shady behaviour and rubbish quality in one hit. If someone says it’s dodgy, they’re basically warning you to swerve it.
Usage examples
"Nah, I’m not eating that kebab, looks dodgy and the bloke’s using yesterday’s sauce. Let’s grab a proper chicken shop up the road, yeah."
"The car ran fine but the paperwork looked dodgy, so I walked away before handing over a penny."
"It was a properly dodgy part of town, so we kept our phones in our pockets and walked quick."
Where it comes from
Built straight off dodge, the verb for ducking and weaving out of trouble. If a thing is dodgy, it is the sort you would want to dodge, shifty, unreliable, one bad move from going wrong. The word has been a British staple for well over a century.
Other ways to say it
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