unskilled

adjective

un·​skilled ˌən-ˈskild 

1

: not skilled in a branch of work : lacking technical training

an unskilled worker

2

: not requiring skill

unskilled jobs

3

: marked by lack of skill

produced unskilled poems

Synonyms of unskilled

• inexperienced
• amateur

Examples of unskilled in a Sentence

an unskilled handling of the facial features in the portrait explains why it is attributed to “school of Velázquez” and not to the master himself

hired unskilled workers because they would work for lower wages

Recent Examples on the Web

The jobs were broken down into around 200 management roles, 67 office or clerical roles, 67 professional, 534 skilled and 133 unskilled. — Kendrick Calfee, Kansas City Star, 6 Aug. 2026

Understand What The Skills Gap Actually Rewards Of the owners who couldn’t fill their openings, 27% said skilled roles went unfilled, and 12% said the same for unskilled roles. — Sarah Hernholm, Forbes.com, 12 July 2026

Road accidents kill thousands in Bangladesh every year, due to a combination of poor road conditions, unskilled driving and inadequate oversight of traffic rules. — Adam England, PEOPLE, 25 May 2026

In an email to Krebs, Valadon claimed that the repo’s commit logs show that GitHub’s default protections against committing secrets—protections designed to protect unwitting or unskilled developers against exactly this kind of stupidness—had been disabled by the repo’s administrator. — Lee Hutchinson, ArsTechnica, 19 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1559, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for unskilled

• redistilled
• semiskilled
• unfulfilled
• backfilled
• distilled
• fulfilled
• infilled
• instilled
• rebuild
• refilled
• unfilled
• untilled

Kids Definition

unskilled

adjective

un·​skilled ˌən-ˈskild 

ˈən-

1

: not skilled

especially : not skilled in a branch of work : lacking mechanical training

an unskilled worker

2

: not requiring skill

unskilled jobs

3

: marked by lack of skill

an unskilled painting