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
Amy Nicholson, Twin Cities, 23 Oct. 2025
But the show never recaptures that energy, and what follows rapidly devolves into an ungainly blob of franchise-building obligation.
—Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 22 Oct. 2025
Despite their ungainly silhouettes and handling quirks, they were considered formidable gun platforms.
—Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, 20 Oct. 2025
Critics started using the ungainly term Apatowian to describe his imitators.
—Adrienne Lafrance, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 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 31 Oct. 2025.
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