ungainly
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From un- (“not”) + gainly (“graceful; becoming; proper, suitable; gracious, kindly”) (from gain (“dexterous; convenient, easy, handy; suitable”), from Old Norse gegn (“fit, serviceable; direct, straight; honest; kindly”) + -ly (suffix forming adjectives from nouns)). Compare dialectal Norwegian Nynorsk ugjegnleg (“stubborn; troublesome”).
Base: gainly
Affixes: un-
Inflected forms:
form: ungainlier
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: more ungainly
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: ungainliest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: most ungainly
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: ungainlie
pos: adj
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Clumsy; lacking grace.
pos: adj
examples: They being a very ſilly ſort of People, had no other way to ſhew their Spight and Reſentment, than by making Mouths at the Dutch as they paſſed by, and ſometimes Spitting upon them. To break them of that ungainly Cuſtom, we made a reſolution amongſt us, never to let any paſs by that did ſo, whether Old or Young, Man or Woman, without giving them a good Box on the Ear.
When the young scholar [Samuel Johnson] presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of desultory, but not unprofitable study.
There is but little tenderness in her manner to Celia, who is played by Miss Ione Bourke with very great simplicity and taste, though she has the disadvantage of being taller and in every way ungainlier than Rosalind, which is just the reverse of Shakespeare's intention.
[A] string of huge woolly camels, most powerful and ungainliest of their kind, swaying along beneath their loads as they thrust out their shaggy snaky necks in an aimless fashion from side to side, and frightening our nags in a desperate scramble to get out of the way up the mountain slope; […]
Photographs of the Fowler Moguls had always given me the impression of an ungainly design: the sight of them more then confirmed it.
His body, though thin, looked oversized and ungainly, his limbs poorly knit together; he appeared to conquer his tendency to awkwardness by making only the smallest, most deliberate of movements.
gloss: Gangling
pos: adj
gloss: Difficult to move or to manage; unwieldy.
pos: adj
examples: My lady brought with her from England a most profane instrument, a lute of ungainlie height, at which Master Higginson looketh doubtfully as if it were an instrument of sin, and methinketh Mistresses Mary and Elizabeth Fenwick thinketh it also […]
gloss: Unsuitable; unprofitable.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: And this is the excellency and perfection of a Christian, infinitely above the reach of the proudest moralists; this is the repentance of a Christian, whereby he makes up those defects which were most eminently notorious in the heathen; this is the impression of the humbling spirit, which proud heathen nature was never stamped with, for it was not so much their ignorance in which they offended God,—though that was also full of guilt, as hath been proved,—as their misusing of their knowledge to ungainly ends, as either ambition, superstition, or for satisfying their curiosity, as partly hath, and for the present needs not further to be demonstrated.
For as she could not, alas, select / Twixt ye goodlie and ungainlie, / Why of course 'twas Actions must direct / Her goode opinion,—mainlie.
Derived words: ungainliness
Translations: