to feel gyppy
- phrasal verb
- Slang
- Whenever I feel gyppy, I drink ginger tea to settle my stomach.
Examples
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After the roller coaster, she felt gyppy.
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I've been feeling gyppy all day after that seafood lunch.
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She warned him not to go swimming if he started to feel gyppy.
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I feel gyppy after that meal.
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After eating that greasy burger, I started feeling gyppy and needed some fresh air.
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He always feels gyppy when he rides the bus after eating.
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Whenever I feel gyppy, a bit of fresh air helps relieve my stomach discomfort.
Synonyms
To be sick or slightly ill
To be a little sick in the stomach
To be a little sick, often after eating bad food
Antonyms
How Nauseous
Surface Forms
Morphology
feel + gyppy
The verb 'feel' is transparent, but the crucial element 'gyppy' is not a recognizable English morpheme (missing from dictionaries and not analyzable), so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent forms could not predict its meaning. The item appears to be slang/dialectal for 'nauseous/queasy' and must be learned by exposure rather than composition, so it is opaque.
Etymology
Feel gyppy may come from old slang 'gyp', which meant to upset or trouble. Imagine your stomach being upset or turned over—if it is, you 'feel gyppy', so the phrase now means 'to feel nauseous'.