sick as a parrot
"sick-as-a-parrot" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sick as a parrot” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Extremely sick; very ill.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sick-as-a-parrot · sick as a parrot · English
sick as a parrot · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sick as a parrot |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “sick as a parrot” in English
Rare enough to double-check
sick as a parrot is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for sick as a parrot, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: (very disappointed): Apparently of sporting (soccer) origin. The correct English form is sick as a parrot, spelled S-I-C-K- -A-S- -A- -P-A-R-R-O-T.
Definition
- 1Extremely sick; very ill.
- 2Very disappointed; miserable.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sick as a parrot appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Bridge was over the moon and Terry sick as a parrot as the game ended 4-2 following a late Chelsea penalty.
2010 December 7, Wirral Euro MP is sick as a parrot over England World Cup bid humiliation, Wirral Globe.
Etymology
(very disappointed): Apparently of sporting (soccer) origin.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.