gauche

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Awkward and lacking social grace; likely to say or do the wrong thing.

   It would be gauche to ask how much the gift cost.

Borrowed from French gauche (“left, awkward”), from gauchir (“to veer, turn”), from Old French gaucher (“to trample, walk clumsily”), from Frankish *walkan (“to full, trample”), from Proto-Germanic *walkaną (“to full, roll up”). Akin to Old High German walchan (“to knead”), Old English wealcian (“to roll up, curl”) and English walk, Old Norse valka (“to drag about”). More at walk.

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