ugliness

plural uglinesses · alternative uglinesse

1. countableuncountableThe condition of being ugly.

   Everything that's realistic has some sort of ugliness in it. Even a flower is ugly when it wilts, a bird when it seeks its prey, the ocean when it becomes violent. Sharon Tate

   1 more example

   His best friend would not have called him good-looking, but he was the fortunate possessor of that cheerful type of ugliness which inspires immediate confidence in its owner.

   1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, chapter 1, in Bulldog Drummond

2. countableuncountableAn unsightly or frightful object.

   Then she wrote back to me, responding to everything I wrote but this reference to love and sex […] A week or so went by, and she called. She was worried about me, wanted me to be careful, wanted to be happy, but she said that she had ignored that "ugliness" in my letter.

   1986, Daniel Garrett, “Creating Ourselves: An Open Letter”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 94

3. countableuncountableUnpleasant behaviour.

   There was some ugliness at the council meeting.