ugly

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Unpleasant to look at; not beautiful.

   They painted the ugly old fence a bright color.

2. 2
   adj

   Unpleasant, threatening, or likely to cause trouble.

   The argument quickly turned ugly.

3. 3
   adj

   Morally offensive or shocking.

   He played an ugly trick on his friends.

Inherited from Middle English ugly, uggely, uglike, borrowed from Old Norse uggligr (“fearful, dreadful, horrible in appearance”), from uggr (“fear, apprehension, dread”) (possibly related to agg (“strife, hate”)), equivalent to ug + -ly. Cognate with Scots ugly, uglie, Icelandic ugglegur. Meaning softened to "very unpleasant to look at" around the late 14th century, and sense of "morally offensive" attested from around 1300. For the meaning development compare Bulgarian грозен (grozen) (< Proto-Slavic *grozьnъ), Russian стра́шный (strášnyj) (< Proto-Slavic *strašьnъ < *straxъ); Latin foedus (…

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