off-putting

adjective

Definition of off-puttingnext
as in obnoxious
not pleasing or likable; causing you to feel dislike of someone or something He has an off-putting manner. The restaurant's garish décor was off-putting.

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of off-putting Bernstine’s every line reading is off-kilter and off-putting, making her worrisome one moment, badass the next, and frequently hilarious. — Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 22 July 2026 This may appear as off-putting calcium rings, or cause more extensive damage to the material. — Jamie Cuccinelli, Martha Stewart, 6 July 2026 And yet for God’s sake, just look at the man—at his dispiriting attempts at humor, his weirdly off-putting outfits, his incessant posting of banalities and faux profundities and extreme-right disinformation on social media. — Mark O’Connell, The New York Review of Books, 4 July 2026 Political experts contend that messages that seem contradictory to a candidate’s background, as well as drowning voters with incessant ads, can be jarring and off-putting to the electorate. — Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2026 See All Example Sentences for off-putting
Recent Examples of Synonyms for off-putting
  1. obnoxious
  2. disgusting
  3. unpleasant
  4. ugly
  5. awful
  6. sickening
  7. shocking
  8. hideous
Adjective
  • Carla is suffering through a press junket for a new spy movie titled The Milliner with her obnoxious co-star, Jeremy (Aaron Tsindos).
    — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 2 Oct. 2026
  • But others have slammed the effort as a pretentious and obnoxious slog.
    — James Hibberd, HollywoodReporter, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of obnoxious
Adjective
  • That’s likely to inspire either affection or immediate exhaustion, depending on your fondness for the infamously disgusting performance group.
    — Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 8 Oct. 2026
  • People tend to think of waste as trash, sewage, slag, manure and other seemingly useless or disgusting substances.
    — Edward D. Melillo, The Conversation, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of disgusting
Adjective
  • As unpleasant as his job might be at the moment, Harbaugh is ostensibly safe.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 2026
  • The Kings and Avalanche aren’t really rivals in the way Dallas and Colorado are, but there’s definitely some unpleasant familiarity after a playoff series last year.
    — Corey Masisak, Denver Post, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of unpleasant
Adjective
  • My right pants leg was gone and among the smaller cuts an ugly gash puckered at me from the calf.
    — Gerald R. Hunter, Outdoor Life, 15 Oct. 2026
  • The first attempts at a foldable smartphone in the 2010s from other companies tended to be fragile and not all that useful, with a big, ugly crease in the center interrupting the experience.
    — Andrew R. Chow, Time, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of ugly
Adjective
  • When Moore left the game after an awful hit from a USC linebacker, Raiola stepped up and looked even better.
    — Ian Miller OutKick, FOXNews.com, 11 Oct. 2026
  • But coming off the back of that, there was all of this legislation that was pretty awful and generally, there were a lot of homophobic attitudes, still quite extreme, even as late as the 1990s.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 9 Oct. 2026
Definition of awful
Adjective
  • Hersh was held hostage for 328 sickening, agonizing, and starving days until his captors executed him with five other young and luminous people in a tunnel underneath Gaza.
    — Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Time, 6 Oct. 2026
  • The idea of my dad’s enduring intense treatments and sickening side effects for the rest of his life was dreadful.
    — Trisha Thadani Kirsten Potter Tanya Pérez Devin Murphy, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2026
Definition of sickening
Adjective
  • The series is notorious for its shocking plot twists (many of which bring dramatic, fatal ends to important characters).
    — Brendan Le, PEOPLE, 15 Oct. 2026
  • Bajaria is said to have attended the town hall that Head of Scripted, UCAN Jinny Howe held Wednesday afternoon amid the layoffs, making her exit today feel abrupt and shocking to staffers.
    — Nellie Andreeva, Deadline, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of shocking
Adjective
  • Alabama has been busily demonstrating that the reverse is true, following a string of hideous botched lethal injection executions with a series of no less gruesome executions with nitrogen suffocation.
    — Maya Foa, Chicago Tribune, 8 Oct. 2026
  • But then comes the ad, a full-screen photo of a hideous brown leather recliner.
    — Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, The Verge, 8 Oct. 2026
Definition of hideous

Browse Nearby Words

off one's rocker
off-putting
offs
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Off-putting.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/off-putting. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.

Copy Citation
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences

More from Merriam-Webster

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of syncretic

See Definitions and Examples »

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

'Affect' vs. 'Effect'

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

The Exceptions of '-s' and '-es' Plurals

Is it 'nerve-racking' or 'nerve-wracking'?

What's the difference between 'fascism' and 'socialism'?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

16 Food Words Recently Added to the Dictionary

The Real Origin of 'Supercalifragilistic'

9 Words That Sound Like Insults But Aren't

7 Words for Bad Endings and Rough Situations

The Words of the Week - Oct. 16
See More

Popular

See More

'Affect' vs. 'Effect'

16 Food Words Recently Added to the Dictionary

The Real Origin of 'Supercalifragilistic'
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
artwork of illustrated limes with the text limes and smile with an arrow connecting the two words
Quiz: Spot the Anagram! Scramble these words to find new words with the e...
See All