hickey

UK /ˈhɪk.i/noun

hickey is a noun meaning “A bruise-like mark made during petting by pressing the mouth to the skin on one’s partner’s body and sucking” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-I-C-K-E-Y and has 2 syllables, and it appears 1.3 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hickey is hickeys.

What does hickey mean?

noun

1
slangA bruise-like mark made during petting by pressing the mouth to the skin on one’s partner’s body and sucking.
2
A similar mark made by the pressure of a musical instrument such as a violin or viola against the neck.
3
USA pimple.
4
informalslangAn object whose name is unknown or cannot be recalled.
5
A printing defect caused by foreign matter on the printing surface resulting in a ring where the ink is missing, appearing as a spot of ink surrounded by a halo, or as an unprinted spot within a solid printed area.
6
informalA serif or other ornamentation on type.
7
Local swelling in a tissue area, especially skin, often due to injury.
8
A tool for making smooth, semicircular bends in conduit and pipe.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce hickey?

UK /ˈhɪk.i/

Hickey has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-hickey.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of hickey

hickeys plural
hicky
hickie

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is hickey?

Hickey appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 25,070th most frequent word form in the list.

hickey0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Hickey in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
French	suçon, sucette (bruise-like mark), truc, machin, bidule (referring to an object whose name is unknown or…)
German	Knutschfleck (bruise-like mark), Dingsbums, Dings, Dingsda (referring to an object whose name is unknown or…), Beule, Horn (swelling in a tissue area)
Portuguese	chupão (bruise-like mark), carrapato (printing defect caused by foreign matter on the…)
Spanish	chupetón, chupón, chupete, mordisco amoroso, moretón, ñangazo erótico (bruise-like mark)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does hickey come from?

Unknown.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).