Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) exciting, lively.

1942		in Pittsburgh Courier 28 Mar. 7: The ‘cats’ were purring and the music was ‘kicky’ [HDAS].
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 64: Hitting the booze [...] I certainly couldn’t think of anything kickier to do.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 26: The biggest gay bar in town (and much kickier than the Y’s at 23rd or 47th Streets).
1982		Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 147: From them she might pick up and more to startle than identify with her sisters use words and expressions such as [...] kicky (exciting) and kinky (perverse).
1991		L. Bing Do or Die (1992) vii: Somebody [...] had decided it would be ‘kicky’ if the models and the movie star [...] could be seen cavorting on and around the Watts Towers.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 302: ‘Hi, Red. I knew you’d have a kicky voice’.

2. (US) excited.

2008

D. Sedaris When You’re Engulfed in Flames 58: While I’ll ocasionally buy a mew tie, it hardly leaves me feeling ‘kicky’.

3. (US black) of a hot sauce, strong.

2022

J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 164: That sauce was real kicky too, like strip-the-paint-off-your-wall kicky.