Word of the Day

: February 13, 2024

maladroit

adjective mal-uh-DROYT

What It Means

Maladroit is an adjective that means "incompetent" or "very awkward." It is usually used in formal speech and writing, and often describes people who lack skill in handling situations.

// The governor has been criticized for his maladroit handling of the budget crisis.

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maladroit in Context

"Barry Allen, a.k.a. the Flash, is the dweebiest Justice League superhero. He's also the most endearing. Barry's got a bit of Peter Parker's boyishness. He's maladroit in a way that's equally maddening and winning." — Mark Feeney, The Boston Globe, 16 June 2023

Did You Know?

Maladroit is perhaps an awkward fit for casual speech—outside of the occasional Weezer album title, one most often encounters it in formal writing—but you can remember its meaning by breaking it down into its French building blocks. The first is the word mal, meaning "badly," which may be familiar from English words including malaise ("a vague sense of mental or moral ill-being") and malodorous ("having a bad odor"). The second is adroit, meaning "having or showing skill, cleverness, or resourcefulness in handling situations." Middle French speakers put those pieces together as maladroit to describe the clumsy and incompetent among them, and English speakers borrowed the word intact. We'd adopted adroit from them a short time before.