Sitch

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An awkward or difficult situation that someone finds themselves in
2. A problematic circumstance or set of conditions requiring attention or resolution
3. A tricky or troublesome state of affairs that presents challenges

Etymology: Long before this slang noun existed, English had a different "sich" (or "siche"), inherited from Old English "sīċ", meaning a watercourse or small stream. Its ancestor, reconstructed as Proto-Germanic "sīką", referred to slow-flowing water or a trickle. The old word survived in northern English dialects as "sike", still used for a small stream or boggy ditch. The modern word has no connection to that stream. It is a clipping of "situation", shortened and respelled to match how the word is spoken. The two words look alike by coincidence rather than descent, so the stream and the circumstances share a spelling but not an ancestry.

Synonyms: stitch, situation