ungenteel

comparative more ungenteel · superlative most ungenteel

1. Not genteel; coarse and ill-mannered.

   The paint on the walls was cracked and peeling. It had an air of ungenteel decay.

   1958, A.G. Yates, The Cold Dark Hours, Sydney: Horwitz, published 1963, page 135

   4 more examples

   He was a jolly, handsome fellow, as any woman need wish for a companion; tall and well made; rather a little too large, but not so as to be ungenteel; he danced well, which I think was the first thing that brought us together.

   1724, Daniel Defoe, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress

   “Well, it would serve to cure him of an absurd practice of never asking a question at an inn, which he had adopted, when quite a young man, on the principal of its being very ungenteel to be curious. […]”

   1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume (please specify |volume=III or IV), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC

   1845, Charles Dickens, The Cricket on the Hearth, Chirp the Second, If I might be allowed to mention a young lady’s legs on any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy’s that there was a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or descent without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But, as this might be considered ungenteel, I’ll think of it.

   But we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low and ungenteel station of life. Better days, as far as worldly prosperity went, were in store for both.

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 57, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC