unseemly
/ənsˈimli/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.67 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Inconsistent with established standards of good form or taste.
adv
In an unseemly manner.
Example Sentences
- "He was drunk and made some very unseemly comments."
- "Yet this I can say, I was very wary of giving them occasion, by any unseemly action, to make them averse to going on pilgrimage."
- "Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones."
- "The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate."
- "“We’d better stand quiet—he’ll go in again directly. He would think it unseemly o’ us to be loitering here.”"
- "Many men, women and children, clothed in bright raiment for the Sabbath, saw with a faint flicker of interest and surprise a very white man on a trishaw, and the driver pedalling with unseemly haste."
Etymology
From Middle English unsemli, probably a partial calque of Old Norse úsǽmiligr (“unseemly”); equivalent to un- + seemly. Cognate with Icelandic ósæmileg (“offensive”), Norwegian usømmelig (“unseemly”), Danish usømmelig (“unseemly”), German unziemlich.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: unsemli
Inflected Forms
unseemlier (comparative)
unseemliest (superlative)
unsemely (alternative)
more unseemly (comparative)
most unseemly (superlative)