licked

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of lick.

   The cat licked its paws clean by the warm hearth.

   Flames licked the dry timber long before the alarm sounded.

   Note

   The verb forms the past regularly. One spelling serves the simple past (the cat licked its paws) and the participle after have or in the passive (the plate had been licked clean). The fighting senses of lick, to thrash or to defeat, are colloquial and dated, and one slang sense is vulgar, so context matters. "They were licked" can be read as a passive or as the "utterly beaten" adjective.

2. 2
   adjective

   Made wet or marked by having been touched with a tongue.

   The cat left a licked patch of fur along its side.

   He noticed the licked rim of the glass and quietly set it aside.

3. 3
   adjectiveslang

   Thoroughly defeated; completely beaten.

   Down by thirty points, the challengers looked thoroughly licked.

   He refused to admit he was licked, even as the votes piled up against him.

   Similarbeaten, defeated, whipped, vanquished, finished

   Oppositevictorious, triumphant, unbeaten, undefeated

   Note

   As slang, the word works in two directions. A person can be licked, meaning beaten and out of fight. Or someone can have a problem licked, meaning they have overcome it. In 2021 Boris Johnson warned that Britain had not yet "got it totally licked" about Covid. The have-got-it-licked pattern is at home in speech and journalism. In careful formal writing, beaten or overcome is the safer choice.

   After weeks of trial and error, she finally had the problem licked.

   We haven't got this thing licked yet, so keep testing.

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