# ugly

Pronunciation: say "UG-lee" /ˈʌɡli/

## Adjective

1. Unpleasant or unattractive to look at, or less often unpleasant to hear or to perceive with another sense.
   - Simple: Not nice to look at. Also, not nice to hear or sense in some other way.
   - _Critics called the new tower one of the ugliest buildings in the city._
   - _He painted the fence an ugly shade of green that clashed with everything._
2. Unpleasant and likely to cause trouble, danger, or loss.
   - Simple: Likely to cause trouble or harm, and bad in a worrying way.
   - _The situation took an ugly turn when the talks collapsed._
   - _The crowd grew angry, and things started to turn ugly._
3. Offensive to a person's moral sense or feelings.
   - Simple: Morally wrong or shocking in a way that upsets people.
   - _The novel exposes the ugly prejudices of its era._
   - _There was something deeply ugly about the way they mocked her._
6. Bad-tempered, difficult, and ready to quarrel.
   - Simple: Bad-tempered and quick to start a fight.
   - _The old bull had an ugly temper and charged at anyone nearby._
   - _A few drinks made him loud and ugly._

## Noun

4. A person or thing regarded as unattractive. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A person or thing seen as not nice to look at.
   - _In the cartoon, a band of grumpy little uglies lives under the bridge._
   - _The hero spends the whole movie fighting off one space ugly after another._
5. The quality or state of being unattractive. *(slang)*
   - Simple: The state of being unpleasant to look at.
   - _Behind the glamour lay plenty of ugly nobody talked about._
   - _The documentary refused to look away from the ugly._

## Verb

7. To make something ugly or unattractive. *(nonstandard)*
   - Simple: To make something not nice to look at.
   - _Please don't ugly up the front yard with all that junk._
   - _Those giant billboards really ugly up the drive into town._

## Noun

8. A face shade projecting from the front of a bonnet, used to shield the eyes from sunlight. *(dated, UK)*
   - Simple: A small shade attached to a bonnet to protect the face from the sun.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A product whose size or shape keeps it from fitting neatly onto a standard pallet.

## Origin

Old Norse uggr ("fear, dread"), perhaps connected with agg ("strife, hate"), gave uggligr ("fearful, dreadful, horrible in appearance"), which Middle English borrowed as ugly. The sense "morally offensive" is recorded from about 1300, and by the late 14th century the meaning had grown milder, becoming "very unpleasant to look at."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ugly (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).