Difficult to understand or handle; requiring clever thinking or possibly involving deception.
From 'trick,' which has origins in Old French 'trique' meaning to cheat or deceive. The suffix '-y' makes it an adjective, and the meaning has expanded to include anything that requires careful handling.
The word 'tricky' is interesting because it can mean both 'difficult in an honest way' (like a tricky math problem) and 'deceptive' (like a tricky person)—it all comes down to whether the difficulty is natural or intentional, showing how one word can capture both meanings of challenge.
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