ungainly

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   lacking grace in movement or posture

   A gawky lad with long ungainly legs.

2. 2
   adj

   Clumsy; lacking grace.

   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.

3. 3
   adj

   Difficult to move or to manage; unwieldy.

   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 […].

4. 4
   adj

   Unsuitable; unprofitable.

   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.

Common collocations

• ungainly figure Adjective + noun

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”).

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
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