ungainly
adjective
Did you know?
What do you have to gain by knowing the root of ungainly? Plenty. The gain in ungainly is an obsolete English adjective meaning "direct" that ultimately comes from the Old Norse preposition gegn, meaning "against." (It is unrelated to the noun in "economic gains" or the verb in "gain an advantage"; those came to English by way of Anglo-French.) Ungainly can describe someone who is clumsy, as in "a tall, ungainly man"; or something that causes you to feel clumsy when you try to handle it, as in "a car with ungainly controls"; or something that simply looks awkward and out of place, as in "an ungainly strip mall."
Examples of ungainly in a Sentence
Adrienne Lafrance, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2025
An absolute charmer, the film is an affecting look at the human-avian bond, with all its mysteries, warmth and ungainly practicalities.
—David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 13 Sep. 2025
On land, hippos appear slow and ungainly.
—Francois Botha, Forbes.com, 7 Sep. 2025
All signatory state parties would have to agree to add a new pathogen (or new type of organism of concern) to the convention, an ungainly process of herding cats that could make this effort hard to achieve.
—Liyam Chitayat, Foreign Affairs, 28 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ungainly
Cite this Entry
“Ungainly.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ungainly. Accessed 18 Sep. 2025.
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