inelegant
/ɪnˈɛlɪɡ(ə)nt
/adjective
1Having or showing a lack of physical grace, elegance, or refinement: he came skidding to an inelegant halt an inelegant bellow of laughter...
- Good games can be elegant or inelegant, elegant games can be good or bad.
- His ungainly, inelegant posture can leave him exposed against nimbler opponents, and he easily attracts ridicule.
- The penultimate movement (in which the four soloists sing with both choirs) just sort of unravelled at the end and slumped to a very inelegant mess.
Synonyms
unrefined, uncouth, unsophisticated, unpolished, uncultured, uncultivated, gauche;
crude, ill-bred, coarse, vulgar, rude, impolite, unmannerly
ungraceful, graceless, ungainly, uncoordinated, gawky, gangling, awkward, clumsy, lumbering, blundering;
inept, unskilful, inexpert
informal with two left feet, like a bull in a china shop
1.1(Of language) unpolished: an inelegant title...
- First, the book is loaded with the technical and markedly inelegant jargon of postmodern philosophy.
- One objection is that they'll let various inelegant usages into the language, but that is a tough basis on which to make one's argument.
- Although written in rather inelegant and sometimes ungrammatical prose, this is an insightful and original work, based on a remarkable range of evidence.
Derivatives
inelegance
/ noun ...- It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
- The company hated its inelegance and destroyed many copies.
- Mind you, sartorial inelegance is hardly a crime.
inelegantly
/ adverb ...- I could not be more pleased that we are having this debate, however inelegantly it may have been brought up, because that is a very good question.
- I came across a sign the other day, inelegantly scrawled on cardboard and stuck to a telephone pole.
- As I scrambled inelegantly up into the driver's seat, I began to regret my gung-ho attitude of earlier that day.
Origin
Early 16th century: from French inélégant, from Latin inelegant-, from in- 'not' + Latin elegant- 'fastidious, refined' (see elegant).
- freckle-faced
- freckly
- Freddie Mac
- Frederick I
- Frederick II
- Fredericksburg
- Frederick William
- Fredericton
- Fred Nerk
- free
- -free
- free activity
- free agency
- free agent
- free alms
- free alongside ship
- free and easy
- free-and-easy club
- free arm
- free-associate
- free association
- free-associational
- free-associative
- free ball
- freebase