as in ugly
unpleasant to look at
along with thousands of other people, we entered our beloved pooch in a contest to find the homeliest dog in the country
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Recent Examples of homely
There is no fruit more poetic than the homely apple: Horticulturally, an apple is a kind of pome.
—
A.o. Scott, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2025
Here too, a bench with drawers (like the one seen here from Reform) provides a practical and homely solution.
7.
—Katharina Schwarze, Architectural Digest, 7 Jan. 2025
Eighteen months ago, the Jewish Museum London, which occupied an idiosyncratic, homely town house in Camden, where my wife and I used to take our kids on rainy weekends, closed its doors for lack of funding.
—Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 2 Jan. 2025
Her new homely passageway features a doormat, letterbox, a wreath made up of leaves and a plant.
—George Monastiriakos, Newsweek, 30 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for homely
A.o. Scott, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2025
Here too, a bench with drawers (like the one seen here from Reform) provides a practical and homely solution.
7.
—Katharina Schwarze, Architectural Digest, 7 Jan. 2025
Eighteen months ago, the Jewish Museum London, which occupied an idiosyncratic, homely town house in Camden, where my wife and I used to take our kids on rainy weekends, closed its doors for lack of funding.
—Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 2 Jan. 2025
Her new homely passageway features a doormat, letterbox, a wreath made up of leaves and a plant.
—George Monastiriakos, Newsweek, 30 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for homely
Recent Examples of Synonyms for homely
Adjective
-
The birds' droppings end up on the ground and windows below, creating an ugly scene for staff, branch patrons and passersby walking in the River Market District.—
Joseph Flaherty,
Arkansas Online,
23 May 2025
-
Compare the first half of Season 15 to Jodie Whittaker’s last outing as the Doctor, and things get uglier.—
Jake Kanter,
Deadline,
23 May 2025
Adjective
-
Smears on non-sensor areas of the tiara are like bug debris on your hood, aesthetically unpleasing but not harmful.—
Eric Tegler,
Popular Mechanics,
1 Oct. 2019
-
His side's inability to finish off the game against Burnley on the other hand was very unpleasing.—
SI.com,
SI.com,
1 Feb. 2018
Adjective
-
But Eleanor has backed herself into an awful corner, and in some ways, so too has Johansson’s film, which is stuck trying to impart sage wisdom through the lens of a truly hideous (if well-meaning) lie.—
Kate Erbland,
IndieWire,
20 May 2025
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There are no save-the-cat redemptions for a man who became famous for torturing, murdering and performing hideous experiments on countless Jews as part of a team of doctors overseeing medical services at Auschwitz-Birkenau.—
Jordan Mintzer,
HollywoodReporter,
20 May 2025
Adjective
-
However sincere and dedicated Bianca Cline’s efforts are, there’s something grotesque about hiring a second cinematographer to attempt to reproduce Hutchins’s style, and something perverse about digitally pasting an actor’s face on another’s in order to maintain continuity.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
20 May 2025
-
It’s stylized, grotesque — and apparently, mother-repellent.—
Clayton Davis,
Variety,
11 May 2025
Adjective
-
But what has emerged is a repetitive, unattractive, and finally unrewarding slog, in which Ducournau’s filmmaking verve itself seems to harden into lifelessness.—
Justin Chang,
New Yorker,
26 May 2025
-
Although domestic demand for these goods remains strong, bringing this sector back to the United States is both politically empty and economically unattractive.—
Zongyuan Zoe Liu,
Foreign Affairs,
29 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Homely.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/homely. Accessed 3 Jun. 2025.
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