Table of Contents
ungainly (adjective) –
1a : lacking in smoothness or dexterity
b : hard to handle
2 : having an awkward appearance
Source : Merriam -Webster
Etymology : What do you have to gain by knowing the root of “ungainly?” Plenty. The “gain” in “ungainly” is an obsolete English adjective meaning “direct,” ultimately derived from the Old Norse preposition gegn, meaning “against.” (The unrelated verb “gain” came to English by way of Anglo-French and is related to an Old High German word meaning “to hunt for food.”) “Ungainly” can describe someone who’s clumsy (as in “a tall and ungainly man”), or something that causes you to feel clumsy when you try to handle it (as in “a car with ungainly controls”), or something that simply looks awkward and out of place (as in “an ungainly strip mall”).
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