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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

ugly.

Displeasing to the eye; aesthetically unpleasing.

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈʌɡli//ˈɜɡli//ˈɘ̞ɡli/

  1. Displeasing to the eye; aesthetically unpleasing.

  2. Displeasing to the ear or some other sense.

  3. Offensive to one's sensibilities or morality.

    He played an ugly trick on us.

  4. Ill-natured; crossgrained; quarrelsome.

    Southern-US
    an ugly temper; to feel ugly

  5. Unpleasant; disagreeable; likely to cause trouble or loss.

    derogatory · figuratively
    an ugly customer, wound or rumor
    an ugly story that was being noised about in newsrooms across the nation
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English ugly, uggely, uglike, borrowed from Old Norse uggligr (“fearful, dreadful, horrible in appearance”), from uggr (“fear, apprehension, dread”) (possibly related to agg (“strife, hate”)), 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. For the meaning development compare Bulgarian грозен (grozen) (< Proto-Slavic *grozьnъ), Russian стра́шный (strášnyj) (< Proto-Slavic *strašьnъ < *straxъ); Latin foedus (< Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyh₂-).

noun/ˈʌɡli//ˈɜɡli//ˈɘ̞ɡli/

  1. Ugliness.

    slang · uncountable

  2. An ugly person or thing.

    countable · slang · uncountable

  3. Any product whose size and shape prevents it from fitting neatly on a pallet.

    countable · informal · uncountable

  4. A shade for the face, projecting from a bonnet.

    UK · countable · dated · informal · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English ugly, uggely, uglike, borrowed from Old Norse uggligr (“fearful, dreadful, horrible in appearance”), from uggr (“fear, apprehension, dread”) (possibly related to agg (“strife, hate”)), 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. For the meaning development compare Bulgarian грозен (grozen) (< Proto-Slavic *grozьnъ), Russian стра́шный (strášnyj) (< Proto-Slavic *strašьnъ < *straxъ); Latin foedus (< Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyh₂-).

verb/ˈʌɡli//ˈɜɡli//ˈɘ̞ɡli/

  1. To make ugly (sometimes with up).

    nonstandard · transitive
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English ugly, uggely, uglike, borrowed from Old Norse uggligr (“fearful, dreadful, horrible in appearance”), from uggr (“fear, apprehension, dread”) (possibly related to agg (“strife, hate”)), 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. For the meaning development compare Bulgarian грозен (grozen) (< Proto-Slavic *grozьnъ), Russian стра́шный (strášnyj) (< Proto-Slavic *strašьnъ < *straxъ); Latin foedus (< Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyh₂-).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.