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clumsy

[kluhm-zee]

adjective, -si·er, -si·est.

awkward in movement or action; without skill or grace: He is very clumsy and is always breaking things.

awkwardly done or made; unwieldy; ill-contrived: He made a clumsy, embarrassed apology.

Origin:
1590–1600; clums benumbed with cold (now obsolete) + -y¹; akin to Middle English clumsen to be stiff with cold, dialectal Swedish klumsig benumbed, awkward, klums numbskull, Old Norse klumsa lockjaw. See clam²

Related forms

clum·si·ly, adverb

clum·si·ness, noun

Synonyms
1. ungraceful, ungainly, lumbering, lubberly. 2. unhandy, unskillful, maladroit, inexpert, bungling, bumbling, heavy-handed, inept.

Antonyms
2. adroit, skillful.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To clumsy

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Clumsy is always a great word to know.

So is zedonk. Does it mean:

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

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Example Sentences

Some look elegant, while others look awkward and clumsy.

Unless you are an undisputed star in organizing efficient group work, it can be a clumsy way of showing off your pedagogic skills.

The unions are furious at what they regard as a clumsy attempt to please the financial markets.

EXPAND

Some look elegant, while others look awkward and clumsy.

Unless you are an undisputed star in organizing efficient group work, it can be a clumsy way of showing off your pedagogic skills.

The unions are furious at what they regard as a clumsy attempt to please the financial markets.

On land, canvasback movements are clumsy and the ducks seldom stray too far from the water's edge.

Giraffes can float, but they would be clumsy and unstable in the water.

That's when you get clumsy and the oil starts to spill over the sides.

Too-big gloves are clumsy to work in and are a menace to the bees.

They're definitely a cut above their clumsy predecessors.

Beach chairs can be clumsy to lug across the sand and impossible to pack into a suitcase.

He actually seems so dull as to not realize that he is providing unintended transparency to his clumsy scheme.

It was clumsy and time-consuming, but it avoided horrible bank charges.

Clumsy and large, glyptodonts likely lived on flat plains.

Just watch a fish or bird move, and you will know that our planes and ships are clumsy.

The phone's backside has ample tooth to it, another line of defense against clumsy phone-droppers.

Grammatically incorrect, confusing, and painfully clumsy.

Yet his government is looking as clumsy and paranoid as ever.

Iguanas' stout build gives them a clumsy look, but they are fast and agile on land.

In this game, you're a clumsy killer of fuzzy stuffed bunnies.

Again and again, she saw how even a relatively clumsy robot dog or electronic baby doll could spark a deep emotional response.

Yet the technology still relies on hours of recordings and looks clumsy.

Like clumsy criminals, glaciers leave many clues behind them.

They are a little clumsy though and tend to bump into things.

When he checked me, he was clumsy and didn't even try not to hurt me.

Internet shopping got off to a rocky start with thousands of clumsy cybermalls, before specialised retailers showed a better way.

The creature beat its ragged brown wings with some effort and landed in a clumsy heap on the bed.

Aptera's efforts to portray this management shakeup as a vacation were clumsy at best.

In addition, admittedly, there was a layer of genuine surprise at the administration's clumsy handling of it all.

Toshiba's camera is hampered by clumsy controls and smudgy picture quality.

In a world of fewer dragons but a great many more snakes, it can look clumsy.

The integrated spoiler looks a bit awkward, if not downright clumsy.

They are a little clumsy though and bump into things.

It was better to backtrack, every move elegantly reversed, than to climb in a clumsy or scrappy way.

Thick-billed murres are clumsy in the air, but incredibly graceful underwater.

Speech-recognition programs are no longer clumsy exercises in futility.

It was, mysteriously, a service where the guests wore tattered paper bags with clumsy eye holes over their heads.

It would have spent the majority of its time on water and been clumsy on land.

Stock market term for unintended transactions caused by clumsy data entry.

But the effect was muffled by the clumsy way in which it was announced.

But the results of their efforts are often clumsy and painfully unusable.

The animals are too clumsy and expensive to find a place in many museums, and.

Gone are the clumsy platform shoes that were once their trademark.

If this clumsy undiscriminating approach were applied to the rigors of science it could hardly yield any useful results.

But doctors are often too clumsy or insensitive to counsel victims of violence.

These trains have to pull in and then back out in a clumsy manoeuvre.

One is that they are clumsy and overall poor at climbing.

Its look is drab, and its editing is especially clumsy.

Windows may squander computing power through its clumsy architecture.

In any other field of argument, this would be regarded as a clumsy and over-wrought exercise in hair-splitting and even denial.

Serenity's verbal fireworks help compensate for its clumsy special effects.

The actors are awkward, the dialogue is clumsy and the resolution preposterous.

In that picture she was always sorry for the clumsy pins, and the uneven parting in her hair.

Compared to the average hummingbird or fruit fly, such craft are now clumsy and unstable.

It's clumsy to press the shifter's side button to toggle forward for reverse, back for drive.

Walruses are clumsy on land but swim with fluent grace.

But others say it is a clumsy attempt at social engineering.

Yet internal tensions are exacerbated when clumsy outsiders intervene.

How big depends on how clumsy you are and/or the availability of sharp objects and mind-altering substances.

Australia's firewall is a case in point, even if it is a clumsy way of enforcing the law.

The design was still a clumsy contraption with a heavy motor connected by a metal cable to the reciprocating shaving head.

On screen, the cowled hero has mostly remained locked either in clumsy camp or gritty noir, but nothing beyond.

Rather, it is the short sentences that can be clumsy.

The kindest view of the government is that it is clumsy to the point of self-harm.

True, clumsy bombers were apt to blow themselves up rather than their.

As a reader, it is difficult to ignore such clumsy speedbumps in this otherwise well-paced narrative.

It has a functioning tax system, albeit a clumsy one, so has something to lose from uprooting its tax system and starting again.

What's more, they both seem rather clumsy bits of signalling.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

clumsy (ˈklʌmzɪ)

—*adj* , -sier, -siest
1.	lacking in skill or physical coordination
2.	awkwardly constructed or contrived

[C16 (in obsolete sense: benumbed with cold; hence, awkward): perhaps from C13 dialect clumse to benumb, probably from Scandinavian; compare Swedish dialect klumsig numb]

'clumsily

—*adv*

'clumsiness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

clumsy

1597, from M.E. clumsid "numb with cold," pp. of clumsen "to benumb," from O.N. klumsa, intens. of kluma "to make motionless."

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