Suspicious points two ways. A suspicious package left on a train seat looks like trouble; a suspicious neighbour is the one twitching the curtains, certain that you are up to something.
Which way it points depends on the sentence, and this catches learners out: 'he was suspicious' can mean he doubted everyone, or it can mean he looked like a criminal. For the doubting sense it takes of — suspicious of his motives, suspicious of anything free. The adverb does heavy work: suspiciously cheap, suspiciously quiet, acting suspiciously. The noun is suspicion, and police language is full of both halves — a suspicious death, a suspicious vehicle, held on suspicion of theft. Nothing about the word is neutral; calling a person suspicious is never a compliment.
1adjectivesuspiciousMaking people think that something dishonest or dangerous is going on.~67%
“A suspicious van had been parked outside the bank since dawn.”
synonyms: dubious, questionable
2adjectivedistrustfulNot trusting someone, or believing that something is wrong.~33%
“She was suspicious of anyone who was that friendly that quickly.”
synonyms: distrustful, wary
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Suspicious came from Old French sospecious, from Latin suspiciosus. Underneath sits the Proto-Indo-European root speḱ-, to look, the same root that gives inspect and spectacles. Suspicion has always been a matter of watching.
Proto-Indo-European
*speḱ-
Latin
suspiciosus
Old French
sospecious
English, today
suspicious
From Old French sospecious, from Latin suspiciosus, suspitiosus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA