What does colicky mean?
Colicky is an adjective describing someone suffering from, or something characteristic of, colic — severe, cramping, spasmodic pain arising in the intestines. It appears most often in two settings. The first is medicine, where a doctor might refer to 'colicky pain' when describing the griping, wave-like discomfort of an intestinal disturbance, distinguishing it from sharper or more localized abdominal symptoms. The second is everyday family life, where 'colicky baby' is a familiar phrase for an infant who cries inconsolably for hours at a time, often in the evening, without any clear underlying illness. In this parental usage the word carries emotional weight, evoking exhaustion, anxiety, and the search for relief. Derived ultimately from the ancient Greek word for the large intestine, colicky has retained its connection to gut distress across centuries. Its usefulness lies precisely in this double role: precise enough for clinical description, yet warm enough to be part of ordinary conversations about sleepless nights and crying infants.
adjectiveSuffering from or characteristic of colic — severe, spasmodic pain in the abdomen caused by intestinal disturbance; especially used of infants who cry for extended periods without an identifiable medical cause.
- Affected by or causing abdominal colic — spasmodic intestinal pain.
- (Of infants) crying excessively and inconsolably for extended periods, typically attributed to colic.
"The exhausted new parents finally soothed their colicky baby after hours of inconsolable crying."
"The doctor examined the colicky patient and ruled out appendicitis."
"Their colicky newborn kept the whole household awake for weeks."
When parents describe a 'colicky' baby, they're unknowingly using a word that traces back over two thousand years to the Greek word for the large intestine.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of colicky
Colicky derives from colic, which entered English via late Latin colicus from Greek kolikos, meaning 'of the colon' — kolon being the Greek word for the large intestine. The adjective form developed to describe pain characteristic of intestinal colic and later extended specifically to distressed infants. Its closest relatives are colic itself, colitis, and the anatomical term colon, all tracing back to that same Greek root.
How colicky is actually used
The word is used both clinically, by physicians describing cramp-like abdominal pain, and colloquially by parents of infants, where 'a colicky baby' is an extremely common phrase. In the infant sense it carries strong connotations of parental exhaustion and helplessness. It functions almost entirely as an attributive adjective ('a colicky baby', 'colicky pain'); standalone predicative use is less common.
Easily confused with colicky
Cholic relates to bile (as in cholic acid, from Greek cholē), whereas colicky relates to intestinal colic, from Greek kolon (the large intestine).