Meaning & use
sike myself out
Last updated
Meaning
verbtransitiveslanginformal
To make yourself feel nervous, worried, or less confident, often by overthinking or telling yourself you will fail.
Grammar: Reflexive: you always 'sike yourself out'. It takes a reflexive pronoun (myself, yourself, himself, etc.).
Patterns
- sike myself out
- sike yourself out
- sike someone out
I totally siked myself out before the exam and forgot everything.
Don't sike yourself out; you've practiced this speech a hundred times.
He siked himself out by imagining all the ways he could fail.
Word forms
| base form | sike out |
|---|---|
| third person singular | sikes out |
| past tense | siked out |
| past participle | siked out |
| present participle | siking out |
Common combinations
- sike myself out
- I always sike myself out before a big game.
- sike yourself out
- Try not to sike yourself out with negative thoughts.
- sike someone out
- The other team tried to sike us out with trash talk.
- get siked out
- She got siked out by the pressure and made mistakes.
Synonyms and how they differ
- psych yourself out
- This is the more standard spelling of the same expression; 'sike' is a slang variant.
- intimidate yourself
- This is more formal and usually means to frighten yourself on purpose; 'sike myself out' is about losing confidence through worry.
Word family
Commonly confused: sike myself out or sike?
sike myself out vs sike
As an interjection, 'sike!' means 'just kidding!' or 'fooled you!' — a completely different use from 'sike myself out'.
Practice
What does 'sike myself out' mean?
Choose one answer.
Option B is correct because 'sike myself out' means to make yourself nervous or less confident. Option A would be 'psych myself up', option C is 'sike!' as a joke, and option D is 'push myself'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sike myself out”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.