Clumsy \Clum"sy\, a. [Compar. Clumsier; superl. Clumsiest.]
[OE. clumsed benumbed, fr. clumsen to be benumbed; cf. Icel.
klumsa lockjaw, dial. Sw. klummsen benumbed with cold. Cf.
1st Clam, and 1st Clamp.]
1. Stiff or benumbed, as with cold. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
2. Without skill or grace; wanting dexterity, nimbleness, or
readiness; stiff; awkward, as if benumbed; unwieldy;
unhandy; hence; ill-made, misshapen, or inappropriate; as,
a clumsy person; a clumsy workman; clumsy fingers; a
clumsy gesture; a clumsy excuse.
[1913 Webster]
But thou in clumsy verse, unlicked, unpointed,
Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed.
--Dryden.
Syn: See Awkward.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
clumsy
adj 1: lacking grace in movement or posture; "a gawky lad with long
ungainly legs"; "clumsy fingers"; "what an ungainly
creature a giraffe is"; "heaved his unwieldy figure
out of his chair" [syn: gawky, clunky, ungainly,
unwieldy]
2: not elegant or graceful in expression; "an awkward prose
style"; "a clumsy apology"; "his cumbersome writing
style"; "if the rumor is true, can anything be more inept
than to repeat it now?" [syn: awkward, cumbersome, inapt,
inept, ill-chosen]
3: difficult to handle or manage especially because of shape;
"an awkward bundle to carry"; "a load of bunglesome
paraphernalia"; "clumsy wooden shoes"; "the cello, a
rather ungainly instrument for a girl" [syn: awkward, bunglesome,
ungainly]
4: showing lack of skill or aptitude; "a bungling workman";
"did a clumsy job"; "his fumbling attempt to put up a
shelf" [syn: bungling, fumbling, incompetent]
[also: clumsiest, clumsier]
WordNet (r) 2.0
105 Moby Thesaurus words for "clumsy":
Doric, all thumbs, awkward, barbaric, barbarous, blunderheaded,
blundering, boorish, botched, bovine, bulky, bumbling, bungling,
butterfingered, cacophonous, careless, cloddish, clownish,
clumsy-fisted, coarse, contrary, crosswise, crude, cumbersome,
cumbrous, deficient, discommodious, doggerel, dysphemistic,
elephantine, fingers all thumbs, fumbling, gauche, gawkish, gawky,
graceless, gross, half-assed, ham-fisted, ham-handed, haphazard,
harsh, heavy-handed, hit-and-miss, hit-or-miss, hulking, hulky,
impractical, improper, impure, in bad taste, incommodious,
inconcinnate, inconcinnous, inconvenient, incorrect, indecorous,
inelegant, inept, infelicitous, left-hand, left-handed, loutish,
low, lubberly, lumbering, lumpish, lumpy, maladroit, massive,
massy, messy, oafish, outlandish, perverse, ponderous, promiscuous,
rude, slipshod, slipshoddy, sloppy, slovenly, sluttish, splay,
stiff, tasteless, troublesome, uncourtly, uncouth, undignified,
uneuphonious, unfelicitous, ungainly, ungraced, ungraceful,
unhandy, unhappy, unmanageable, unpolished, unrefined, unseemly,
untidy, unwieldy, vulgar, wooden
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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