Dictionary

unhandsome en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˌʌnˈhæn.səm/

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Germanic *un- Proto-West Germanic *un- Old English un- Middle English un- English un- Proto-Germanic *handuz Proto-West Germanic *handu Old English hand Middle English hond Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *somHós Proto-Germanic *samaz Proto-Germanic *-samaz Proto-West Germanic *-sam Old English -sum Middle English -som Middle English hondsom English handsome English unhandsome From un- + handsome.

Meanings

1. Not handsome.
   • c. 1790, Robert Burns, Letter to Mr. Charles K. Sharpe of Hoddam, in J. Logie Robertson (ed.), Burns’s Letters, The coat on my back is no more: I shall not speak evil of the dead. It would be equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout, which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat.
   • Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
   • They were typically Scottish engines in appearance, not unhandsome in a sturdy way, with smokebox wing plates, sandboxes on the leading splashers, heavy funnel, dome crowned with twin safety-valves, and the Westinghouse brake. 1959 January 14, John W. Grant, “Scottish 0-4-4 Tank Engines”, in Railway Magazine, page 26:
   • He was a big chubby man, in his middle thirties, the muscle of his rugger days now settling placidly to reminiscent fat. He was not unhandsome. 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 582:
   • Fanny could have said a great deal, but it was safer to say nothing, and leave untouched all Miss Crawford's resources, her accomplishments, her spirits, her importance, her friends, lest it should betray her into any observations seemingly unhandsome. 1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter III, in Mansfield Park: […], volume II, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 53–54:
   • When he got his lubberly sandals on, and his long robe of coarse brown linen cloth, which hung straight from his neck to his ankle-bones, he was no longer the comeliest man in his kingdom, but one of the unhandsomest and most commonplace and unattractive. 1889, Mark Twain, chapter 27, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court:

Forms

Deriveds

unhandsomeness · unhandsomely