deform
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /dɪˈfɔːm/
ipa: /dəˈfɔɹm/
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)m
Forms: form: more deform
form: most deform
Etymology: PIE word
 *de
From Middle English deforme (“out of shape, deformed”) [and other forms], from Middle French deforme (modern French difforme (“misshapen, deformed”)), or directly from its etymon Latin dēfōrmis (“departing physically from the correct shape, deformed, malformed, misshapen, ugly; (figuratively) departing morally from the correct quality, base, disgraceful, shameful, unbecoming”), from dē- (prefix meaning ‘away from; from’) + fōrma (“form, appearance, figure, shape; fine form, beauty; design, outline, plan; model, pattern; mould, stamp; (figuratively) kind, manner, sort”) (further etymology unknown; perhaps related to Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “form, shape; appearance; outline; kind, type”), probably from Pre-Greek, but there is no consensus) + -is (suffix forming adjectives of the third declension).
Senses: examples: text: […] I did proclame, / That vvho ſo kild that monſter moſt deforme, / And him in hardy battayle ouercame, / Should haue mine onely daughter to his Dame, and of my kingdome heyre apparaunt bee: […]
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 20, page 176:
text: Sight ſo deform what heart of Rock could long / Drie-ey’d behold?
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 491-492:
text: The common overgrown vvith fern, and rough / VVith prickly goſs, that ſhapeleſs and deform / And dang’rous to the touch, has yet its bloom / And decks itſelf vvith ornaments of gold, / Yields no unpleaſing ramble; […]
ref: 1785, William Cowper, “Book I. The Sofa.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, page 28:
text: Angela the old / Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform; […]
ref: 1819, John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, stanza XLII, page 139:
text: [W]hat is wanting to success, / If somehow every face, no matter how deform, / Evidence, to some one of hearts on earth, that, warm / Beneath the veriest ash, there hides a spark of soul / Which, quickened by love's breath, may yet pervade the whole / O' the grey, and, free again, be fire?
ref: 1872, Robert Browning, Fifine at the Fair, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, stanza 43, pages 49–50:
synonyms: word: disfigured
word: distorted
word: shapeless
word: deform
word: deformed
word: disfigured
word: distorted
word: malformed
word: misproportioned
word: misshapen
word: shapeless
word: unfashionable
word: bad
word: beat
word: butters
word: butt-ugly
word: clapped
word: coyote ugly
word: deform
word: fuckfaced
word: fugly
word: hideous
word: homely
word: like the back end of a bus
word: plug-ugly
word: repulsive
word: ugly
word: ugly as sin
word: unattractive
word: uncomely
word: unsightly
word: unpretty
antonyms: word: disgusting
word: homely
word: plain
word: ugly
word: amorphous
word: misshapen
qualifier: obsolete except poetic
glosses: Having an unusual and unattractive shape; deformed, misshapen; hence, hideous, ugly.