unbecoming

comparative more unbecoming · superlative most unbecoming

1. Not flattering, attractive or appropriate.

   She wore a rather unbecoming hairstyle.

   4 more examples

   A very small expensive black toque was hideously unbecoming to the yellow, toad-like face beneath it.

   1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 3, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 25

   With its lavish brass and copperwork, this [bright chocolate] seemed a trifle too gay and unbecoming for a G.W.R. locomotive, and apparently the Company soon shared this view for there was a reversion to the standard Brunswick green.

   1955 January, R. S. McNaught, “From the Severn to the Mersey by Great Western”, in Railway Magazine, page 18

   ― Lily: “Don’t stare so much. It’s unbecoming. It makes you look like a country bumpkin.”

   2017 July 12, Moe! Ninja Girls, Japan: NTT Solmare, iOS, Android, scene: Season 7, Chapter 7, Part 2

   Being a gym bunny is simply unbecoming. Not as unbecoming, perhaps, as the bicycle bunnies, with their helmet hair, their strangely padded Lycras that suggest a degree of sexual depravity and those ridiculous clacky shoes. But we’re not very pleasing to behold.

   2017 November 16, Jo Ellison, “Help: the gym has turned us into slobs”, in Financial Times

2. Not in keeping with the expected standards of one's position.

   He was accused of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

   3 more examples

   No proceedings in respect of unbecoming conduct shall be taken in respect of the lawful political opinions or activities of any bishop, priest or deacon.

   2003, General Synod of the Church of England, “Section 8(3)”, in Clergy Discipline Measure 2003, page 4

   “You must be able to smell it too, Chloe. That smell of . . . Well, I’m not going to say what it reminds me of, that would be impolite and unbecoming of a woman of my class and distinction, but it’s a bad smell.”

   2009 October 29, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Mr Stink, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN

   [Prince Andrew:] Do I regret the fact that he [Jeff Epstein] has quite obviously conducted himself in a manner unbecoming? Yes. [Emily Maitlis]: Unbecoming? He was a sex offender. [Prince Andrew:] Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm being polite.

   2019 November 17, 48:00, in Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, BBC Newsnight

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of unbecome

plural unbecomings

1. The process by which something unbecomes.

   By tracing the turns from U.S. to Japan to China, we can see that becoming American, the classic ethnic American narrative, itself opens to further becomings and unbecomings and rebecomings that address mobility and ethnicization […]

   2007, Una Chung, Contagion of Living