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Webster 1913 Edition


Ugly

Ug′ly

,
Adj.
[
Com
par.
Uglier
;
sup
erl.
Ugliest
.]
[Icel.
uggligr
fearful, dreadful;
uggr
fear (akin to
ugga
to fear) +
-ligr
(akin to E.
-ly
,
like
). [GREEK][GREEK]. Cf.
Awe
.]
1.
Offensive to the sight; contrary to beauty; being of disagreeable or loathsome aspect; unsightly; repulsive; deformed.
The
ugly
view of his deformed crimes.
Spenser.
Like the toad,
ugly
and venomous.
Shakespeare
O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of
ugly
sights, of ghastly dreams.
Shakespeare
2.
Ill-natured; crossgrained; quarrelsome;
as, an
ugly
temper; to feel
ugly
.
[Colloq. U. S.]
3.
Unpleasant; disagreeable; likely to cause trouble or loss;
as, an
ugly
rumor; an
ugly
customer
.
[Colloq.]

Ug′ly

,
Noun.
A shade for the face, projecting from the bonnet.
[Colloq. Eng.]
C. Kingsley.

Ug′ly

,
Verb.
T.
To make ugly.
[R.]
Richardson.

Webster 1828 Edition


Ugly

UG'LY

,
Adj.
[See Hack.[
Deformed; offensive to the sight; contrary to beauty; hateful; as an ugly person; an ugly face.
O I have pass'd a miserable night, so full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams.
Fellow, begone; I cannot bear thy sight; this news hath made thee a most ugly man.

Definition 2024


ugly

ugly

English

Alternative forms

Adjective

ugly (comparative uglier, superlative ugliest)

  1. Displeasing to the eye; not aesthetically pleasing.
    • Spenser
      the ugly view of his deformed crimes
    • William Shakespeare
      O, I have passed a miserable night, / So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams.
  2. Displeasing to the ear or some other sense.
  3. Offensive to one's sensibilities or morality.
    • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 12, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
      All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexionor rather as a transition from the subject that started their conversationsuch talk had been distressingly out of place.
    He played an ugly trick on us.
  4. Ill-natured; crossgrained; quarrelsome.
    an ugly temper;  to feel ugly
  5. Unpleasant; disagreeable; likely to cause trouble or loss.
    an ugly rumour;  an ugly customer
    Stay beautiful. Keep it ugly, killjoys
Related terms

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

ugly (countable and uncountable, plural uglies)

  1. (slang, uncountable) Ugliness.
  2. (slang) An ugly person or thing.
  3. (Britain, informal, dated) A shade for the face, projecting from a bonnet.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Charles Kingsley to this entry?)

Verb

ugly (third-person singular simple present uglies, present participle uglying, simple past and past participle uglied)

  1. (transitive, nonstandard) To make ugly (sometimes with up).
    • 2011, P. A. Krishnan, Muddy River
      I move noiselessly, eat my food carefully without uglying the dining table with its remnants, fold my bedsheets in neat rectangles and place them on the bed in perfect symmetry.
    • 2012, Najib George Awad, And Freedom Became a Public-square (page 197)
      There is time when the absence of either integrity or humility has uglied the face of the church before the world and turned Christianity into just another cocoon of condemnation and hypocrisy.
    • 2014, Jonathan Crocker, A Dream of Hope and Sorrow
      He had spent half of his journey mulling over how he would savour his revenge. He could already envision her pretty little form lying prone at his feet. He would take great pleasure in uglying her up a little before killing her.