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ungainly
in a sentence

show 115 more with this conextual meaning
  • The ungainly boy lived for reaching the legal age for legal slaughter.†   (source)
  • While he talks, he makes ungainly movements and bumps the table so that the spoons clatter in their bowls.†   (source)
  • I was ungainly, awkward, a fat kid.†   (source)
  • She ran from him, but her body seemed thick and ungainly.†   (source)
  • Might the ungainly package be mistaken for garbage and tossed in the incinerator?†   (source)
  • Her feet tangled in the hem of her robe and she fell to the carpet with an ungainly thump.†   (source)
  • Ornithopters were ungainly looking contraptions, with their flapping feathered wings, and airshipmen tended to look down on them as a foolish business, as they did on all heavier-than-air craft.†   (source)
  • Eventually the old man regains his strength and, seen only by the wife, flaps away, his ungainly flight recalling a rather disreputable vulture more than any angel.†   (source)
  • Even in the curtained gloom the ungainly bulk beside me was unmistakable.†   (source)
  • They sit on broad cushioned seats in various kinds of ungainly posture, clearly calculated to be the identifying signs of some kinship group or secret organization.†   (source)
  • The ungainly thumping of her heartbeats evened, shaping out time.†   (source)
  • Black swans glided across the pond with a bearing so proud they made me feel ashamed to be such an ungainly creature as a human being.†   (source)
  • I had slid down the seat and slept the night through in an ungainly position.†   (source)
  • When he missed the ball with an ungainly swing of the leg, they were there to cover for him, but always subtly, and never in a way that demeaned him or his effort.†   (source)
  • She had always been petite, slender and well-proportioned, and the ungainliness of her body amazed and depressed her.†   (source)
  • The animal had an ungainly body with a striped beak that it kept tucked against its breast like a pompous old man, a white head and neck, and a sooty torso.†   (source)
  • Ann obeys, huffing in her ungainly way toward our teacher.†   (source)
  • Others hover near the ground before spilling back up into the air, ungainly as baby ballerinas.†   (source)
  • And Claudia, the crowning jewel, a fairy queen with bare white shoulders wandering with her sleek tresses among the rich items of her tiny world while I watched from the doorway, spellbound, ungainly, stretched out on the carpet so I could lean my head on my elbow and gaze up into my paramour's eyes, seeing them mysteriously softened for the time being by the perfection of this sanctuary.†   (source)
  • 'I won't take the valve apart now,' he said, and began taking it apart, working with slow, tireless, interminable precision, his rustic, ungainly face bent very close to the floor, picking painstakingly at the minute mechanism in his fingers with such limitless, plodding concentration that he seemed scarcely to be thinking of it at all.†   (source)
  • Two years later, she moved to another one-a secure, if ungainly, building in an apartment complex in Southeast, about two miles northeast of Ballou.†   (source)
  • I loved that ungainly BMW and the way its udderlike engine bulged out on either side of the frame.†   (source)
  • A tall figure materialized out of the shadows, hair sticking up in a corona of ungainly spikes.†   (source)
  • The black trees on the opposite bank looked as stark as he remembered-like a papier-mache forest created by a child, branches . jutting off at ungainly angles.†   (source)
  • I snapped off my seat belt and pushed my way out of the car, ungainly and awkward in my pregnancy.†   (source)
  • Celia notices their ungainly hands, campesino hands, stained with tobacco.†   (source)
  • He was ungainly and twisted.†   (source)
  • Even now, he refused a wheelchair and relied instead upon a cane to get about with ungainly, stumbling steps that invited inconsiderate stares.†   (source)
  • We struggle with the ungainly thing, making all kinds of clanking noises as we wobble down the stairs.†   (source)
  • She took a long time twisting herself into her girdle, hooking garters to her stockings, pulling on an ungainly, expensive tweed suit.†   (source)
  • The hammer was ungainly, badly balanced, and heavier than a rifle.†   (source)
  • Merrick was skinny and ungainly, with the Whitshanks' definite jaw that looked better on the men than on the women, and that summer she was wearing her hair in a dramatic new style, flaring out on the left side but pressed flat to her skull on the right, so that it looked as if she were perpetually being buffeted by a strong wind.†   (source)
  • At that she flung her head high, spun on her ungainly legs and gallumphed back down the ridge apparently more indignant than afraid.†   (source)
  • The yews sprawled, yellowish and ungainly; the stone steps had the grimy, unswept look of a city institution.†   (source)
  • Long before Florence's mother moved south and built the brown-shingle bungalow, the Braggs had lived in the big house, ungainly and monolithic, with tall Victorian windows and bellying bays and broad brick chimneys.†   (source)
  • Mr. Dubois had analyzed the Service oath for us in History and Moral Philosophy and had made us study it phrase by phrase — but you don't really feel the size of the thing until it comes rolling over you, all in one ungainly piece, as heavy and unstoppable as Juggernaut's carriage.†   (source)
  • She was a tall girl, ungainly, with a long waist and long legs.†   (source)
  • Mary, whispering, "Excuse me, retired to the bathroom, affronted and humbled that one should have to obey such a call at such a time; she felt for a few moments as stupid and enslaved as a baby on its potty, and far more ungainly and vulgar; then, with her wet hands planted in the basin of cold water she stared incredulously into her numb, reflected face, which seemed hardly real to her until, with shame, she realized that at this of all moments she was mirror gazing.†   (source)
  • The captain leaned back in his chair and glanced at the scientist, noting the lean, intelligent face, the loose, ungainly figure.†   (source)
  • At one time there had been kingfishers here, flashing between the young shoots for our fish; and paddy birds; and sometimes, in the shallower reaches of the river, flamingoes, striding with ungainly precision among the water reeds, with plumage of a glory not of this earth.†   (source)
  • Her legs were as big around as the stumps of trees, and she moved with an ungainly shuffle.†   (source)
  • Ralph remembered the ungainly figure on a parachute.   (source)
    ungainly = awkwardly moving (not graceful)
  • Andy had these features as well, but in ungainly proportions, without her slinky ermine grace.†   (source)
  • Joffrey examined the boy, an ungainly lad with a coarse, freckled face and thick red hair.†   (source)
  • The dog rose to its feet, moving shadows that resolved themselves into its large and ungainly form.†   (source)
  • The tall, ungainly girl left the hall with long strides, almost unnoticed amidst the revelry.†   (source)
  • Now that it was down, the helicopter looked ungainly and enormous.†   (source)
  • Harry picked up Hedwig's cage, his Firebolt, and his rucksack, gave his unnaturally tidy bedroom one last sweeping look, and then made his ungainly way back downstairs to the hall, where he deposited cage, broomstick, and bag near the foot of the stairs.†   (source)
  • This highly ungainly word denoting a most useful notion comes to us from the great Russian formalist critic Mikhail Bakhtin, who limits it pretty much to fiction, but I think I'll follow the example of T. S. Eliot, who, being a poet, saw that it operates throughout the realms of literature.†   (source)
  • Once the body was slid into the hearse, the flag on top of the container lay still, and the family—like a large, ungainly animal—approached the hearse and Owen Meany.†   (source)
  • He gave an ungainly wobble, and the golden egg, still damp from the bath, slipped from under his arm.†   (source)
  • He says he felt "uncomfortable" when he went for his interviews downtown, and of course he did: he was short and ungainly and Jewish and talked with the flat, nasal tones of his native Brooklyn, and you can imagine how he would have been perceived by some silver-haired patrician in the library.†   (source)
  • …the evenings, a damp, gritty wind blew in the windows from Park Avenue, just as the rush hour traffic was thinning and the city was emptying for the night; it was rainy, trees leafing out, spring deepening into summer; and the forlorn cry of horns on the street, the dank smell of the wet pavement had an electricity about it, a sense of crowds and static, lonely secretaries and fat guys with bags of carry-out, everywhere the ungainly sadness of creatures pushing and struggling to live.†   (source)
  • Canon Mackie is a tall, stooped, bland-faced man, so plainly ugly that his ungainly size is unthreatening—and so plainly decent that even his stubbornness of mind is not generally offensive.†   (source)
  • He was so heavy and so ungainly, it would be just like him to break a wrist or twist his ankle getting out of the way.†   (source)
  • Her body felt so fat and ungainly now that she welcomed the help of their strong arms and deft hands, whereas before she had often been uncomfortable with the way they fussed and fluttered about her.†   (source)
  • He landed breathless in front of Catelyn Stark, an ungainly-looking man with wild tufts of rust-colored hair sticking out from under a conical steel cap.†   (source)
  • She was twelve, ungainly and uncomfortable, waiting to meet the young knight her father had arranged for her to marry, a boy six years her senior, sure to be a famous champion one day.†   (source)
  • A man in a white robe was performing an ungainly dance, whether motivated by religion or drugs, Phil couldn't tell.†   (source)
  • A look of shock and surprise-the hunter hunted-my husband lifted off his feet in an ungainly and weightless manner.†   (source)
  • Out of armor, her body seemed ungainly, broad of hip and thick of limb, with hunched muscular shoulders but no bosom to speak of.†   (source)
  • Mr. Thompson glanced at James Taggart, at the sloppy posture of a tall figure slumped in ungainly self-distortion, and caught him watching Galt's movements with such hatred that Mr. Thompson sat up, fearing it would become audible in the room.†   (source)
  • There, on the wagon's wooden flatbed, vulgarly exposed to us, a spectral image of young Laura lay, her blouse torn open, her breasts exposed, her arms held back as if pinned, her legs spread wide, rocking her hips in a most ungainly and ugly manner that was not to be mistaken.†   (source)
  • Certainly the captain of the Swordfish did not, intent as he was on finally spearing something with his ungainly fat sword.†   (source)
  • Her ungainly iron ram, fashioned after the likeness of the fish from which she took her name, parted the surface of the river before her.†   (source)
  • Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time, and nothing would do but that he try it at once.†   (source)
  • To starboard, she had only Allard's Lady Marya, the ungainly Swordfish—so far behind now that she was nearer the third line than the second—and Piety, Prayer, and Devotion, who would need all the godly intervention they could get, placed as vulnerably as they were.†   (source)
  • I'm just something very ungainly that you'vemarried.†   (source)
  • Everything was ungainly there, roomy and oversized.†   (source)
  • He was lank and ungainly but, even with his wooden peg, he moved as swiftly as a snake.†   (source)
  • He lost some infinitesimal sum at cards, and as a result expected me to pay for all his treats—well, Mulcaster was in this party; I could see his ungainly form shuffling about below and hear him saying: 'It's no good.†   (source)
  • It was ridiculous and ungainly, lying there on his back with legs sprawling in the air.†   (source)
  • Then I recalled the eyes of Montgomery's ungainly attendant.†   (source)
  • The animal waddled toward the centre of the circle, short and squat and ungainly.†   (source)
  • He lisped—he was very plain and homely-looking: and exceedingly awkward and ungainly.†   (source)
  • 'At any rate,' observed Uriah, with a writhe of his ungainly person, 'we may keep the door shut.†   (source)
  • I know I am wild, and uncouth, and ungainly—†   (source)
  • 'Thank you, Miss Trotwood,' said Uriah, writhing in his ungainly manner, 'for your good opinion!†   (source)
  • You know he is as ungainly within as without.†   (source)
  • He may have been quite right in thinking so, for he was an odd-looking personage, with an ungainly figure and long iron-gray hair that touched his stooping shoulders, and a full, soft brown beard which he had worn ever since he was twenty.†   (source)
  • Through the crowd of ungainly, shabbily-dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a creature from a finer world.†   (source)
  • Its back was corrugated and ornamented with ungainly bosses, and a greenish incrustation blotched it here and there.†   (source)
  • He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where he lay like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet, life-size, indeed, but how different from life's colour or life's comeliness!†   (source)
  • 'I perceived that the three last fingers of his wounded hand were stiff and could not move independently of each other, so that he took up his tumbler with an ungainly clutch.†   (source)
  • They fled like soft, ungainly animals.†   (source)
  • Philip had never thought of such things before, but he observed now that Miss Wilkinson's ankles were thick and ungainly.†   (source)
  • Its evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks, its mouth was all alive with appetite, and its vast ungainly claws, smeared with an algal slime, were descending upon me.†   (source)
  • At sight of this tableau, many of the men in blue sprang from behind their covers and made an ungainly dance of joy.†   (source)
  • Most striking, perhaps, in their general appearance was the disproportion between the legs of these creatures and the length of their bodies; and yet—so relative is our idea of grace—my eye became habituated to their forms, and at last I even fell in with their persuasion that my own long thighs were ungainly.†   (source)
  • The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without being in any particular manner deformed.†   (source)
  • Pierre was ungainly.†   (source)
  • Thus equipped, he was to saunter into the office, as some country fellow from Covent Garden market might be supposed to do for the gratification of his curiousity; and as he was as awkward, ungainly, and raw-boned a fellow as need be, Mr. Fagin had no fear but that he would look the part to perfection.†   (source)
  • His figure was a little ungainly, as in the days when my knuckles had taken such liberties with it, but it looked as if it would always be light and young.†   (source)
  • We had been holding back the dogs, but they, with Fritz, now rushed towards the cave, the birds rising around them and departing with heavy ungainly flight, leaving only Fritz's prize, and one of the other birds, killed by the large one in its fall.†   (source)
  • Each of the crones, as she received the weapon, commenced a slow and measured, but ungainly, step, around the savage, until the whole were circling him in a sort of magic dance.†   (source)
  • This done, he made divers ungainly movements in his chair, and singling out one particular fly on the ceiling from the other flies there asleep, fixed his eyes upon him, and began to roar a meek sentiment (supposed to be uttered by a gentle swain fast pining away with love and despair) in a voice of thunder.†   (source)
  • This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon him.†   (source)
  • The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rod,—or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly,—thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude.†   (source)
  • Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as "Nevermore."†   (source)
  • How surprised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools!†   (source)
  • That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose—a very tall ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.†   (source)
  • In the winter of '46-7 there came a hundred men of Hyperborean extraction swoop down on to our pond one morning, with many carloads of ungainly-looking farming tools—sleds, plows, drill-barrows, turf-knives, spades, saws, rakes, and each man was armed with a double-pointed pike-staff, such as is not described in the New-England Farmer or the Cultivator.†   (source)
  • With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged, stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees.†   (source)
  • " But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore— What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore."†   (source)
  • At the precise moment when his ungainly person came under the observation of the scout, in the manner just mentioned, the woodsman himself, though in his assumed character, was the subject of the solitary being's profounded reflections.†   (source)
  • Mademoiselle Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince who, able to appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed, ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her off; and here at last was a Russian prince.†   (source)
  • The great numbers on their backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse mangy ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower animals; their ironed legs, apologetically garlanded with pocket-handkerchiefs; and the way in which all present looked at them and kept from them; made them (as Herbert had said) a most disagreeable and degraded spectacle.†   (source)
  • Heyward himself was posted at hand, so near that he might communicate with his companions without raising his voice to a dangerous elevation; while David, in imitation of the woodsmen, bestowed his person in such a manner among the fissures of the rocks, that his ungainly limbs were no longer offensive to the eye.†   (source)
  • In a few moments a colt was seen gliding, like a fallow deer, among the straight trunks of the pines; and, in another instant, the person of the ungainly man, described in the preceding chapter, came into view, with as much rapidity as he could excite his meager beast to endure without coming to an open rupture.†   (source)
  • He wore them with the careless impertinence of utter ease in the unbecoming, and the very grotesqueness of his appearance became a declaration of his superiority, a superiority great enough to warrant disregard of so much ungainliness.†   (source)
  • He was much below the middle height, but his large head, which seemed to hang loosely on his body, gave him an odd ungainliness.†   (source)
  • So it was deliberate, this flaunting of his twisted legs and ungainly waddle on the long progress to his seat.†   (source)
  • She follows her mother with ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal.†   (source)
  • Virag reaches the door in two ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.†   (source)
  • It was a sight to see the figure Don Quixote made, long, lank, lean, and yellow, his garments clinging tight to him, ungainly, and above all anything but agile.†   (source)
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