AWKWARD • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Awkward

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/ˈɑkwərd/ /ˈɔkwərd/ Listen

adjective

Awkward adj.

Wanting dexterity in the use of the hands, or of instruments; not dexterous; without skill; clumsy; wanting ease, grace, or effectiveness in movement; ungraceful; as, he was awkward at a trick; an awkward boy. "And dropped an awkward courtesy."

Not easily managed or effected; embarrassing. "A long and awkward process." "An awkward affair is one that has gone wrong, and is difficult to adjust."

Perverse; adverse; untoward. (Obs.) "Awkward casualties." "Awkward wind." "O blind guides, which being of an awkward religion, do strain out a gnat, and swallow up a cancel."

Synonyms: Ungainly; unhandy; clownish; lubberly; gawky; maladroit; bungling; inelegant; ungraceful; unbecoming. Awkward, Clumsy, Uncouth. Awkward has a special reference to outward deportment. A man is clumsy in his whole person, he is awkward in his gait and the movement of his limbs. Clumsiness is seen at the first view. Awkwardness is discovered only when a person begins to move. Hence the expressions, a clumsy appearance, and an awkward manner. When we speak figuratively of an awkward excuse, we think of a lack of ease and grace in making it; when we speak of a clumsy excuse, we think of the whole thing as coarse and stupid. We apply the term uncouth most frequently to that which results from the lack of instruction or training; as, uncouth manners; uncouth language.

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Etymology of 'Awkward'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Awkward" Quotes from Famous Books

... sprang, but did not nearly reach the height at which they hung. She encouraged him to jump again and again, and at every awkward spring she laughed at his fruitless exertions. She then took a short run with little steps, and, floating as easily in the air as if she were borne on wings, plucked the figs, and then was wafted down as softly on ...

— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... immediately became the butt of every unfledged wit, and his former works were eternally condemned; insomuch that when Camusat published, after the death of our author, a little volume of extracts from his manuscript letters, it is curious to observe the awkward situation in which he finds himself. In his preface he seems afraid that the very name of Chapelain will be sufficient ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... language, for a merry girl is about to laugh at the Boston boy as she sees him pass, and he will cause this lovely girl to laugh with him many times in his rising career and in different spirit from that on the occasion when she first beheld him, the awkward and comical-looking boy wandering he knew not where on ...

— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... fires; and I looked downwards over the edge of that place, and went round about it, and did see presently a ledge upon the far side, that was difficult to come upon; yet a place of some little safety to any that might go down to it; for it was awkward to see, and did any monster seek to come at me, I should have chance of warning; and might go downwards a greater way in time to ...

— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... revealed the mystery of the little round tin box. The process of shaving, never a delightful one, is a very unpleasant and awkward piece of business when the floor on which one stands, the glass in which he looks, and he himself are all describing those complex curves which make cycles and epicycles seem like simplicity itself. The little box contained a reaping machine, which gathered the capillary harvest ...

— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

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