as in clumsy
difficult to use or operate especially because of size, weight, or design
an unwieldy machine that requires two people to operate it
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Recent Examples of unwieldy
Neville includes a clip from a London play about The Beatles that bore the unwieldy title John, Paul, George, Ringo…and Bert, featured some very bad wigs and makeup and, in keeping with the official story, cast McCartney as the villain.
—
Sheri Linden, HollywoodReporter, 25 Feb. 2026
His bars are packed tight with jokes and an unwieldy personality, bursting with vocal quirks and tricks that show a rapper growing into his most confident self.
—Matthew Ritchie, Pitchfork, 23 Feb. 2026
Shot in mid-2024, the film has the air of having been chopped and changed several times over toward its final unwieldy form, premiering in competition at this year’s Berlinale.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 16 Feb. 2026
That slippery, unwieldy peel, widely thought to be destined for the trash, actually has cooking, cleaning, and even medicinal properties.
—Louise Parks, Martha Stewart, 10 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for unwieldy
Sheri Linden, HollywoodReporter, 25 Feb. 2026
His bars are packed tight with jokes and an unwieldy personality, bursting with vocal quirks and tricks that show a rapper growing into his most confident self.
—Matthew Ritchie, Pitchfork, 23 Feb. 2026
Shot in mid-2024, the film has the air of having been chopped and changed several times over toward its final unwieldy form, premiering in competition at this year’s Berlinale.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 16 Feb. 2026
That slippery, unwieldy peel, widely thought to be destined for the trash, actually has cooking, cleaning, and even medicinal properties.
—Louise Parks, Martha Stewart, 10 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for unwieldy
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unwieldy
Adjective
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That makes the killers kind of human and fallible and clumsy, and these movies get a lot of mileage out of the slapstick shenanigans of their slasher chases.—
Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
27 Feb. 2026
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Then, however, Phillips was sent off four minutes into the second half for a clumsy lunge at Svante Ingelsson, and suddenly Wednesday believed.—
Richard Sutcliffe,
New York Times,
22 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Our awkward hero copes with grief through humor while navigating relationships with her type-A sister (Sian Clifford), her nasty stepmother (Olivia Colman), and, in season 2, a hot priest (Andrew Scott).—
Declan Gallagher,
Entertainment Weekly,
7 Mar. 2026
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This profound snow drought comes at an especially awkward time, compounding a quarter-century of regional aridification that has drained the nation’s two largest reservoirs to precarious depths.—
Brandon Loomis,
AZCentral.com,
7 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Yoav Gallant, then the country's defense minister, believed that arrangement was too cumbersome.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
5 Mar. 2026
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Without enough staff, the distribution of Measure W funds will be cumbersome and slow while the fund accumulates taxes through 2031.—
Kyle Martin,
Mercury News,
2 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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And yet, within quarter of a century, this ungainly apparatus had established itself as a vital pillar of global governance.—
Time,
Time,
26 Feb. 2026
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Melbourne, Australia — An ungainly barrel of a shark cruising languidly over a barren seabed far too deep for the sun's rays to illuminate was an unexpected sight.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
18 Feb. 2026
Adjective
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Watching Jiricek play this season, his skating still looks extremely clunky and worrying.—
Corey Pronman,
New York Times,
6 Mar. 2026
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About the size of a football, the fire engine-red sirens look like a clunky, portable speaker.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
5 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Unwieldy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unwieldy. Accessed 12 Mar. 2026.
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