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ugly

[uhg-lee]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective, -li·er, -li·est.

very unattractive or unpleasant to look at; offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance.

disagreeable; unpleasant; objectionable: ugly tricks; ugly discords.

morally revolting: ugly crime.

threatening trouble or danger: ugly symptoms.

mean; hostile; quarrelsome: an ugly mood; an ugly frame of mind.

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(especially of natural phenomena) unpleasant or dangerous: ugly weather; an ugly sea.

COLLAPSE

Origin:
1200–50; Middle English ugly, uglike < Old Norse uggligr fearful, dreadful, equivalent to ugg(r) fear + -ligr -ly

Related forms

ug·li·ly, adverb

ug·li·ness, noun

su·per·ug·ly, adjective

Synonyms
1. ill-favored, hard-featured, uncomely, unsightly, unlovely, homely. 3. base, heinous, vile, monstrous, corrupt. 4. disadvantageous, ominous. 5. surly, spiteful. 6. stormy, tempestuous.

Antonyms
1. beautiful.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Ugly 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

It's time to retire that ugly window air-conditioner for the winter.

It is an open and ugly secret that many colleges still weigh such factors in faculty hiring decisions.

Far-right parties hope to capitalise on the ugly mood at presidential and local elections later this month.

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It's time to retire that ugly window air-conditioner for the winter.

It is an open and ugly secret that many colleges still weigh such factors in faculty hiring decisions.

Far-right parties hope to capitalise on the ugly mood at presidential and local elections later this month.

Some people think wind turbines are ugly and complain about the noise the machines make.

The ugly truth is that the general culture can't handle hardcore culture.

There's no denying it is an ugly business, but such choices have to be made in war.

Not to go on about it, but my poached eggs are ugly and unpleasant.

The solution is to add your own magnets to that ugly old iPad you can barely stand to look at any more.

Letting criminals get away with ugly crimes is another story.

Dove is running an ad for body wash that seems to be turning a black woman from ugly and ashy to smooth and white.

Though courteous and hospitable, the commanders expressed ugly views.

People can get hurt and their dead bodies on the streets create an ugly scene.

It is simply an ugly construct that allows atheists to exalt their ego by denigrating everyone else.

The movie resumes and portrays its likable characters forced into ugly choices.

The technique goes by plenty of other names, all of them ugly.

Another, however, sees precisely how ugly a moment this is.

The ugly results will make for difficult decisions on bonuses as the year draws to a close.

Such planning should include the good, the bad and the ugly.

Mothers and fathers loved their ugly or unintelligent kids because they were unaware that their kids were ugly and unintelligent.

When reality is exposed in ugly half-truths, the answer is not to cover them up.

Too bad the feeding consists of the usual straining at gnats and the cheerfully swallowing of big ugly camels.

Plagiarism is an ugly word, and it is an ugly fact of academic life.

Unfortunately, another ugly idea looks likely to emerge as well from what remains of the review.

Which is better solar, toxic waste or ugly wind turbines.

Not so much that it won't go looking for a better place to stay if things get ugly.

In all other countries serious inequality is seen as ugly and immoral and a failure of society.

No justification is necessary for what is clearly ugly and wrong.

But the mere use of ugly words, epithets, or slurs is not an adequate ground for negative sanctions.

All of these positives could have been separate items of legislation and not tied to this truly ugly juggernaut.

Of course, the pattern can repeat and then it gets ugly.

In modern times there will always be the violent and violence will always pop its ugly head up in domination.

It is religious intolerance raising it's ugly head all for the sake of some ungodly lustful men who yearn for power and money.

They all seem to have a penchant for ugly footwear, baggy shorts and t-shirts, and large meals.

The public mood in the country had been ugly for months.

The days of ugliness are forgotten, the ugly duckling is now a beautiful swan.

These days we've got an elegant new museum in the park and a tree-lined boulevard where an ugly freeway offramp used to.

The strobe surrounds the lens giving your subject flat, even illumination with none of the ugly dark shadows.

Beaches worldwide bear witness to the ugly impact of plastic debris on our oceans.

But that is only the tip of the proverbial and ugly iceberg.

Apple's new iPad makes the old one look fat and ugly.

Its owners are either so green, or so keen to pinch their petrol pennies, that they were willing to buy an ugly car to prove it.

Some say the method creates flat land needed to expand towns, while others argue it's ugly and damages the environment.

On the contrary, extra dimensions theories have had to stand some ugly modifications in order to be consistent with experiments.

People do ugly things trying to hide their cables and cords.

It is an argument that, as this discussion shows, has an ugly history and an ugly future.

It comes on the heels of several other ugly racial incidents.

Then have them draw a picture of an insect that looks scary or ugly or has some undesirable behaviors.

But none of the frames match and, as previously stated, my higher degrees are ugly.

Vancouver enjoys a beautiful sea-and-mountain setting and some increasingly ugly problems.

Wear a damned ugly shoe for a few months if it means permanent healing.

Obviously, the handsome have more mating opportunities than the ugly.

There was a man who said he'd rather die than see his beautiful mountain blasted into an ugly shell of itself-and he got his wish.

Jo'burg is another big ugly city with a high crime rate.

Leaving the single currency would cause the coinage of some ugly new words: lirafication, or worse, drachmisation.

If you guide them carefully they can learn that the colourful box contains ugly things inside.

At the end of the week he sent a gracious note apologizing for the ugly things he'd said.

It is one of the few places in the city where the sky has not been stolen by high and indescribably ugly buildings.

Think of it as the hysterical upgrading of ugly visions of the future already found in polite critiques of higher ed.

It took a great deal of violence and international pressure to bring an end to this era and its ugly final chapter, apartheid.

But invasive species aren't always an ugly duckling and emotions can run high against efforts to remove them.

Its binding, cover, and printing are obviously ugly.

They had to continue living and working with the accused and didn't want to hear the ugly details.

However, it is still existant, and can rear its ugly head at any time.

It might be an ugly truth, but it is none the less true.

The mining of coal is an ugly and environmentally destructive process.

Nature is full of ugly bitey things that want to eat you.

Use water wisely, or face the ugly consequences much sooner than one would have thought.

The ugly are one of the few groups against whom it is still legal to discriminate.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

ugly (ˈʌɡlɪ)

—*adj* , -lier, -liest
1.	of unpleasant or unsightly appearance
2.	repulsive, objectionable, or displeasing in any way: war is ugly
3.	ominous or menacing: an ugly situation
4.	bad-tempered, angry, or sullen: an ugly mood

[C13: from Old Norse uggligr dreadful, from ugga fear]

'uglily

—*adv*

'ugliness

—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
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

ugly

mid-13c., uglike "frightful or horrible in appearance," from O.N. uggligr "dreadful, fearful," from uggr "fear, apprehension, dread" (perhaps related to agg "strife, hate") + -ligr "-like." Meaning softened to "very unpleasant to look at" late 14c. Extended sense of "morally offensive" is attested from

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c.1300; that of "ill-tempered" is from 1680s. Among words for this concept, ugly is unusual in being formed from a root for "fear, dread." More common is a compound meaning "ill-shaped" (e.g. Gk. dyseides, L. deformis, Ir. dochrud, Skt. ku-rupa). Another Gmc. group has a root sense of "hate, sorrow" (see loath). Verb uglify is attested from 1570s. Ugly duckling (1877) is from the story by Hans Christian Andersen, first translated from Danish to English 1846. Ugly American "U.S. citizen who behaves offensively abroad" is first recorded 1958 as a book title.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

ugly

In addition to the idioms beginning with ugly, also see rear its ugly head.