How to Use ungainly in a Sentence

ungainly

adjective

• He was tall and ungainly.
• Those limbs, so ungainly on land, turned fleet in the water.
  — Sylvia Poggioli, The New York Review of Books, 29 Mar. 2020
• But the Echo is a big, somewhat ungainly cylinder, and a bit pricey at $180.
  — Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Twin Cities, 28 May 2017
• That’s not a huge difference, yet the new car is a bit more pleasing to the eye than the ungainly 5-series GT.
  — Jens Meiners, Car and Driver, 16 June 2017
• That’s not a huge difference, yet the new car is a bit more pleasing to the eye than the ungainly 5-series GT.
  — Car and Driver, 10 Oct. 2017
• The latest member of the rogue’s gallery of variants and subvariants is the ungainly named BA.2.12.1, part of the omicron gang.
  — Joel Achenbach, Anchorage Daily News, 2 May 2022
• With a birdlike arrangement, in contrast, the chest would have to be so large as to be ungainly.
  — Michael B. Habib, Scientific American, 17 Mar. 2021
• The kitchen’s footprint stayed the same, but out went the ungainly original island.
  — Caron Golden, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Mar. 2023
• There are many reasons why the ungainly twins drifted apart.
  — The Economist, 22 July 2017
• The other featured a duck squawking out the ungainly acronym that gave Aflac its name.
  — Maria Aspan, Fortune, 26 Mar. 2024
• With their massive heads and linebacker shoulders, the beasts can seem ungainly.
  — Patricia Harris, BostonGlobe.com, 20 Aug. 2019
• The first is to keep them from becoming huge, ungainly monsters.
  — Steve Bender, Southern Living, 30 Apr. 2021
• Back then, Ohanian was ungainly and clean-shaven, and he was often photographed in a hoodie and with a goofy smile.
  — Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2018
• The play was no masterpiece, an ungainly sprawl with a cast of more than two dozen that, if not shortened by a director, ran three and a half hours.
  — Adam Hochschild, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Oct. 2023
• Some recent weight vests force you to put them on like a pullover, an ungainly process, but the Hypervest goes on like a coat and zips easily.
  — Mark Stock and Ebenezer Samuel, Men's Health, 2 Dec. 2022
• And then, below the horizon, like an ungainly ghost, the birders spotted a rare European bully of the high seas: a great skua.
  — Eric Boodman, STAT, 24 May 2018
• Six miles off the coast of Israel, beyond the brightly colored sails of wind surfers, an ungainly steel structure looms above the blue Mediterranean.
  — Stanley Reed Ofir Berman, New York Times, 27 July 2023
• It’s not just the fact of his ungainly exit from royal life, although that has been a wounding process and continues to be one.
  — Guy Martin, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2021
• Unlike a uniform steak, a butterflied leg of lamb is a lumpy, ungainly thing.
  — Melissa Clark, New York Times, 6 July 2018
• The most ungainly is Seth MacFarlane, playing a British energy-drink mogul who has a sponsored a car at the race.
  — Richard Lawson, HWD, 26 July 2017
• When plugged in, the FireWire cable had to be lodged in an ungainly position to make a connection with the host computer.
  — Wired Blogs, WIRED, 22 Oct. 2004
• Bratt has shoulder pads and a long, mullet-style hairdo with an ungainly bald patch, and his favorite toy is a Rubik’s cube.
  — Jocelyn Noveck, Detroit Free Press, 28 June 2017
• Heavy and ungainly out of water, these reptiles are supreme swimmers.
  — Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic, 15 Apr. 2016
• Like a child learning to ride a bicycle, the bird then launched with ungainly effort, landing on a nearby shrub.
  — Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 July 2019
• This famously tall and ungainly president sits scrunched up in a chair, legs crossed, hand to chin, thinking hard.
  — Holland Cotter, New York Times, 29 Dec. 2016
• Unlike the ungainly first-gen model, the new Mirai makes its best impression from the outside.
  — Roberto Baldwin, Car and Driver, 16 Dec. 2020
• But all too often that means knee-high clompers that not only compel an ungainly walk, but are also a pain to store.
  — Hayley Phelan, New York Times, 14 Mar. 2018
• But the oversize menorahs in use were often ungainly and unattractive, fashioned in a simple way from PVC pipe.
  — Charles Passy, WSJ, 9 Dec. 2020
• In Lileana Blain-Cruz’s ungainly production, the Greek soldiers, in hokey costumes suitable for a school play, are a bloodthirsty lot.
  — Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 21 Feb. 2022
• In its assembly hall, the desk microphones cut the air at ungainly angles.
  — James Verini, New York Times, 19 May 2022

Last Updated: 26 Oct 2024