Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Unattractive |
UnattractiveAdjective1. Lacking beauty or charm; "as unattractive as most mining regions". 2. Lacking power to arouse interest; "being unemployed is a most unattractive prospect". 3. Not appealing to the senses; "untempting food". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "unattractive" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1830. (references) |
Synonym: UnattractiveSynonym: untempting (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: attractive (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Indifference | Unattractive, unalluring, undesired, undesirable, uncared for, unwished, unvalued, all one to. |
Ugliness | Misshapen, misproportioned; monstrous; gaunt; (thin); dumpy; (short); curtailed of its fair proportions; ill-made, ill-shaped, ill-proportioned; crooked; (distorted); hard featured, hard visaged; ill-favored, hard-favored, evil-favored; ill-looking; unprepossessing, unattractive, uninviting, unpleasing. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Unattractive |
| English words defined with "unattractive": devil's milk, dog ♦ Euphorbia helioscopia ♦ frump ♦ Hard-featured ♦ most unattractive, most unsuitable ♦ scraggy, scrawny, sexless, skinny, sun spurge ♦ unattractively, unbecoming, underweight ♦ wartweed, wartwort, weedy. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "unattractive": Fugly ♦ Kwippa Bam Bam ♦ Pregnancy. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I got people stuck in places they haven't even considered how to get out of yet. You don't think I can come up with something good? Can you envision some fairly unattractive alternatives (Good Morning, Vietnam; writing credit: Mitch Markowitz) You are rude, crude, and thoroughly unattractive! (All of Me; writing credit: Edwin Davis; Phil Alden Robinson) Your smile is not unattractive, sir. Did you use it to enamor this young American lady (A Matter of Life and Death; writing credit: Michael Powell; Emeric Pressburger) | |
Clever | The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive. (references; author: unknown) Your thoughts can cause you to be rich or poor, loved or unloved, happy or unhappy, attractive or unattractive, powerful or weak. (references; author: unknown) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Such messages make overweight people feel unattractive. (references) | |
The plaques are of different sizes, shapes, and severity and may be painful as well as unattractive. (references) | ||
They believed that being bigger and stronger would discourage further attacks because men would find them either intimidating or unattractive. (references) | ||
Business | The importance of Private Investment Funds (PIFs) has been diminishing; the decline in usage is due to the low production level and, unattractive margins involved. (references) | |
In the longer run, that classical function of financial intermediation may become unattractive and therefore it would be necessary to develop and expand financial services besides simply taking deposits and making loans. (references) | ||
Economic History | Tanzania | Despite Tanzania's past record of political stability, an unattractive investment climate has discouraged foreign investment. (references) |
Bulgaria | This is because the small size of the Bulgarian market, distance and language differences will make it unattractive to set up a branch or subsidiary at the outset. (references) | |
Vietnam | Generally, if the tax is high, the government is attempting to make the market unattractive for importers in order to protect locally produced products (e.g. safes). (references) | |
Human Rights | Philippines | Vacancies in Mindanao and other poorer provinces particularly are unattractive to many jurists. (references) |
Trade | Colombia | The decline in usage is due to the relatively unattractive margins involved and the rapid increase in bank liquidity over the last two years. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Unattractive" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.41% of the time. "Unattractive" is used about 339 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 99.41% | 337 | 15,616 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.29% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Noun (singular) | 0.29% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 339 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "unattractive": most unattractive. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "unattractive": not-unattractive. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
unattractive woman | 10 |
unattractive | 10 |
man unattractive | 2 |
amateur porn unattractive | 2 |
people unattractive | 2 |
amateur unattractive | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "unattractive"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | i pakëndshëm (awkward, bad, disgustful, disgusting, distasteful, dreary, grating, hard, ill-favored, ill-favoured, nasty, objectionable, repellent, ugly, uncongenial, ungrateful, unlovable, unpalatable, unpleasant, unpresentable, unsightly, warm). (various references) | |
Arabic | كريه (abhorrent, abominable, accursed, atrocious, bad, brackish, cursed, detestable, disagreeable, distasteful, foul, frightful, hateful, horrible, loathsome, nasty, objectionable, odious, offensive, out of favor, out of favour, repellent, repugnant, repulsive, seamy, sickening, sour, ugly, unpleasant, unwholesome, wicked), قبيح (disgusting, fiend, hideous, homely, monstrous, odious, offensive, repugnant, repulsive, ugly, unsightly), غير جذاب (barren), غير أنيق (inelegant, poky). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | непривлекателен (uncomely, uninviting, unlikely, unlovely, unprepossessing), противен (abhorrent, abominable, adverse, bastard, contrary, cross, disagreeable, foul, fulsome, ghastly, gross, horrid, loud, mucky, nameless, nasty, noisome, objectionable, obnoxious, odious, offensive, opposing, pestilential, rebarbative, repugnant, repulsive, scarlet, sickening, sickly, sorry, sour, squalid, swinish, ugly, unfavorable, unfavourable, ungracious, ungrateful, unpalatable, unpleasant, unsavory, unsavoury, vexatious, vile, villainous). (various references) | |
Chinese | 不吸引人 (unappealing, uninviting). (various references) | |
Czech | nezajímavý (sapless, slow, uninteresting), nevábný (unappetizing, uninviting), nelákavý (unappetizing, uninviting), nehezký (unhandsome), neatraktivní. (various references) | |
Danish | for korte stablinger virker ofte uskoent;det samme er tilfaeldet for straekninger med stabling,hvor hoejdeforskellen mellem de to koerebaner hyppigt skifter (frequent changes in the gradient of a motorway produce an unattractive visual effect as do frequent changes in the relative heights of the two carriageways). (various references) | |
Dutch | te veel wisselingen in hoogteligging in een weg evenals te veel wijzigingen in hoogteligging tussen beide rijbanen zijn meestal weinig esthetisch (frequent changes in the gradient of a motorway produce an unattractive visual effect as do frequent changes in the relative heights of the two carriageways). (various references) | |
Finnish | ruma (homely, plain, ugly), epämiellyttävä (disagreeable, displeasing, distasteful, unpleasant). (various references) | |
French | peu séduisant, peu attrayant, ingrat (undutiful, unfruitful, ungrateful, ungrateful person, unpleasant, unsatisfying, unthankful), désagréable (unpalatable, unpleasant). (various references) | |
German | unschön (inelegant, plain, ugly, unaesthetic, unbeautiful, unbecoming, uneloquent, ungainly, unhandsome, unhandsomely, unlovely, unpicturesque, unpleasant, unsightly), unattraktiv (unalluring), reizlos (charmless, dull, graceless, homely, uncomelily, uncomely, uninspiring, unlovely, unmagical, unprepossessing). (various references) | |
Greek | όχι αυθεντικόσ, μη ελκυστικός. (various references) | |
Hungarian | nem vonzó (uninviting). (various references) | |
Indonesian | kurang menarik. (various references) | |
Italian | sconveniente (disadvantageous, disreputable, improper, inconvenient, misbecoming, nonu, suggestive, unfitting, ungentlemanly, unpassable, unseemly, untoward, wrong), poco attraente. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 好悪い (ugly, unstylish), 好の悪い (ugly, unstylish). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | かっ"うのわるい (ugly, unstylish), かっ"うわるい (ugly, unstylish). (various references) | |
Korean | 매 없". (various references) | |
Manx | neuchleaynagh (unalluring, unbiased), meehaitnyssagh (charmless, disagreeable, displeased, displeasing, ill-pleased, objectionable, unacceptable, uncongenial, uncongenial as job, unenjoyable), meechleaynagh. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | attractiveunay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | pouco atraente (displeasing, ungracious, uninviting, unlovable, unlovely). (various references) | |
Romanian | neatrãgãtor (uncomely, unprepossessing), lipsit de farmec. (various references) | |
Russian | непривлекательный (charmless, forbidding, unappealing, uninviting, unlovable, unlovely, unprepossessing, unsavory, unsavoury). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | neprivlačan (plain, unappetizing, uninviting, unlovely), neatraktivan. (various references) | |
Spanish | poco atractivo (homely, off putting), no atractivo (insipid, tired, uninviting). (various references) | |
Swedish | oattraktiv, ful (bad, foul, homely, miserable, nasty, ornery, poor, ugly, unlovely, unseemly, unsightly), frånstötande (forbidding, loathful, loathsome, off putting, repellent, repugnant, repulsive), föga tilldragande. (various references) | |
Turkish | sevimsiz (angular, beastly, grotty, unamiable, uncongenial, ungracious, unlikable, unlikeable, unlovable, unlovely, unprepossessing, unsympathetic), itici (impulsive, projectile, propellent, propelling, propulsive, pusher, pushing, repellent, repelling, repugnant, repulsive, unlikable, unlikeable, unlovely, unprepossessing), çirkin (beastly, eldritch, flagrant, foul, god-awful, heinous, hideous, homely, horrid, ill-favored, ill-favoured, inelegant, misshapen, nasty, nefarious, obnoxious, plain, seamy, shapeless, ugly, uncomely, uncouth, unhandsome, unlovely, unpleasant, unsightly). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | непривабливий (graceless, repulsive, uninviting, unlikely, unspeakable). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | không quyến rũ; không có duyên khó thương, không lôi cuốn, ít hấp dẫn. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "unattractive": unattractively, unattractiveness, unattractivenesses. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "unattractive" (pronounced u'nutra"ktiv) |
| 8 | -u t r a" k t i v | attractive. |
| 6 | -r a" k t i v | refractive. |
| 5 | -a" k t i v | active, hyperactive, inactive, interactive, overactive, proactive, radioactive, reactive, retroactive. |
| 4 | -k t i v | addictive, adjective, affective, collective, conductive, connective, constructive, corrective, counterproductive, defective, destructive, detective, directive, distinctive, effective, elective, ineffective, infective, injunctive, instinctive, instructive, introspective, invective, irrespective, nonproductive, objective, obstructive, octave, perspective, photoconductive, predictive, productive, projective, prospective, protective, reconstructive, reflective, reproductive, respective, restrictive, retrospective, seductive, selective, subjective, superconductive, unproductive, vindictive. |
| 3 | -t i v | accommodative, abortive, accumulative, accusative, acquisitive, adaptive, additive, administrative, adoptive, affirmative, alliterative, alternative, anticompetitive, appointive, appreciative, argumentative, assaultive, assertive, attentive, authoritative, automotive, captive, causative, cognitive, collaborative, combative, commemorative, communicative, comparative, competitive, congestive, consecutive, conservative, consultative, contemplative, contraceptive, cooperative, corruptive, creative, cumulative, curative, deceptive, decorative, definitive, degenerative, deliberative, demonstrative, derivative, descriptive, digestive, dilutive, diminutive, disincentive, disparages, dispositive, disruptive, dissipative, distributive, duplicative, elucidative, eruptive, evocative, executive, exhaustive, expletive, exploitative, exploitive, facultative, Federative, festive, figurative, fixative, formative, fugitive, furtive, generative, hypersensitive, illustrative, imaginative, imitative, imperative, inattentive, incentive, indicative, infinitive, informative, initiative, innovative, inoperative, inquisitive, insensitive, interpretive, intuitive, inventive, investigative, iterative, laxative, legislative, locomotive, lucrative, manipulative, meditative, motive, narrative, native, negative, neoconservative, nonautomotive, noncompetitive, noncumulative, nonexecutive, nonnative, normative, nutritive, operative, palliative, participative, pejorative, perceptive, plaintive, positive, preemptive, prerogative, preservative, presumptive, preventative, preventive, primitive, probative, prognosticative, prohibitive, provocative, punitive, putative, qualitative, quantitative, receptive, recuperative, redemptive, redistributive, regulative, rehabilitative, relative, remunerative, rep, repetitive, representative, restive, restorative, secretive, sedative, sensitive, speculative, stimulative, substantive, suggestive, superlative, supportive, talkative, tentative, ultraconservative, uncompetitive, uncooperative, unimaginative, uninformative, unreceptive, unrepresentative, vegetative, vituperative. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-i-n-r-t-t-t-u-v" | |
-2 letters: attractive. | |
-3 letters: incurvate. | |
-4 letters: activate, anuretic, attainer, carinate, cavatine, cavitate, craniate, curative, evacuant, interact, intercut, navicert, reactant, reattain, taciturn, tincture, titanate, tractate, tractive, truncate, tunicate, urticant, urticate, variance, vicarate. | |
-5 letters: acarine, actuate, anticar, arcuate, arietta, attaint, attract, attrite, avarice, carinae, cateran, cattier, cavetti, caviare, centaur, ceratin, certain, citrate, cittern, creatin, curtain, curtate, incurve, intreat. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-e-i-n-r-t-t-t-u-v" | |
+2 letters: unattractively. | |
+4 letters: unattractiveness. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
