🛌 A fake sick day 🤥 A faker

sickie

1 9.3

A person who pretends to be ill to avoid work

noun
/ˈsɪki/

Slang

: simulador

He constantly calls in sick, but everyone knows he's just a sickie trying to avoid work.

Do you want a sickie who just parties?

Examples

Some sickie, probably that bastard ex-husband of yours.

Perfect Strangers (1984)
Don't be a sickie.

Broadway Bill (1934)
Do you want a sickie who just parties?

B. Simone
Are you some kind of sickie?

Porky's II: The Next Day (1983)
She took a sickie last Friday to enjoy a long weekend without any consequences.
When he said he had a cold, I suspected he was really just being a sickie to skip his responsibilities.

Synonyms

malingerer

vssickie

Formal

2 8.9

A person who pretends to be ill to avoid work

acts by faking illness rather than general incapability

goldbricker

vssickie

Offensive

1 9.9

A person who avoids work by pretending to be busy

relies on claiming illness rather than claiming busyness or excuses

simulant

vssickie

Offensive

8.4

A person who pretends to be ill to avoid work

fakes illness rather than injury to avoid duties

shammer

vssickie

9.9

A person who pretends to be sick to avoid work

fakes illness specifically rather than broader incapacity

skulker

vssickie

9.1

A person who avoids work by pretending to be ill

chooses illness pretense specifically to miss work

How Avoidant

sickie

Slang

1 9.3

shirker

1 8.0

slacker

Offensive

33 4.6

Surface Forms

sickie singular

sickies plural

Morphology

sickie = sick (semi-transparent) = sick + ie

Derived by adding colloquial '-ie' to 'sick' to make a noun referring to an instance or person; the informal and pejorative sense (pretending to be ill) is not fully predictable.

Etymology

The word sickie comes from sick ('ill') plus the friendly ending -ie, used in casual speech in places like Australia and the UK. So a sickie can mean a person who pretends to be 'ill' to avoid work.