ugly

Meanings

Adjective

• Displeasing to the eye; not aesthetically pleasing.
• Displeasing to the ear or some other sense.
• Offensive to one's sensibilities or morality.
• Ill-natured; crossgrained; quarrelsome.
• Unpleasant; disagreeable; likely to cause trouble or loss.

Noun

• Ugliness.
• An ugly person or thing.
• A shade for the face, projecting from a bonnet.

Verb

• To make ugly (sometimes with up).

Related

Similar words

• hideous, homely, repulsive, unattractive, uncomely, unsightly
• displeasing, repulsive, unattractive
• corrupt, immoral, vile

Opposite words

• attractive, beautiful, gorgeous, handsome, pretty, sightly
• attractive, pleasing
• moral

Origin

• From Middle English ugly, uggely, uglike, borrowed from Old Norse uggligr, from uggr (possibly related to agg), equivalent to ug + -ly. Cognate with Scots ugly, uglie, Icelandic ugglegur. Meaning softened to "very unpleasant to look at" around the late 14th century, and sense of "morally offensive" attested from around 1300.