Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. So unusual as to be surprising; uncanny.
- n. An unusual or amazing person.
- n. A stranger.
- n. News.
- adv. To an excessive degree; remarkably.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Unknown; strange; unusual. (Child's Ballads, II. 342).
- n. Anything strange or prodigious.
- n. A strange person; a stranger.
- Wonderfully; remarkably; very: as, unco glad; unco guid.
Wiktionary
- adj. Strange, weird.
- adv. Scotland Very.
- adj. slang, New Zealand, Australia Uncoordinated.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Scot. Unknown; strange, or foreign; unusual, or surprising; distant in manner; reserved.
- adv. Prov. Eng. & Scot. In a high degree; to a great extent; greatly; very.
- n. Scot. A strange thing or person.
WordNet 3.0
- adv. to a remarkable degree or extent
Etymologies
- From uncoordinated. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English unkow, variant of uncouth, strange; see uncouth. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“There scores on scores of things, many of them unco, that is uncouth, the first meaning of which is unknown, to his eyes, stood huddled together in the dim light.”
“N.B. Toddy cheap an 'unco' gude if 'tis his ain mackin.”
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 370, May 16, 1829
“Makes us all either schizo or pathetic unco-operative ego junkies!”
“Since taking on responsibility for the legacy in the wake of criticism that it was unfocused and unco-ordinated, Ford and OPLC chief executive Andrew Altman have addressed complaints that local people would not benefit from the planned new housing, and sought to leave a sporting heritage in the park.”
The Guardian: London 2012: Boris Johnson unveils housing plan for Olympic park
“So annually I dig them out and try to reinsert them in the annoyingly unco-operative memory.”
“Remeber that this current school board has worked with the two above and know how unco-operative they are as they have not been forthright in giving the information they have asked for and answeres to questions and have put this current school board in a bad postion one to many times and trying to make it look like the current school boards fault.”
East Aurora School District 131 Board Transformation Continues with Carol Farnum's Resignation
“Scientists at Pirbright found their cows were unco-operative with attempts to poison them with cattle feed cakes containing infections or ground glass dropped from the air.”
The Guardian: Files reveal Britain's secret biological weapons trials in second world war
“When we study language, we are unco vering in part what makes us human, getting a peek at the very nature of human nature.”
“Ever since he's been dodging bricks, stones, and rotten tomatoes from the unco guid.”
“As long ago as the early 1990s, drum'n'bass – another theoretically unco-optable sound from a previous generation – was crossing over, with tracks like Baby D's shuffling "Let Me Be Your Fantasy", a model of sorts for Magnetic Man feat.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘unco’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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scots words
gowk, wellkenspeckled, dowie, crivvens, clashmaclavers, kludgie, perjink, puddock, well-kenspeckled, gaberlunzie, wheesht, thrawn and 65 more...
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Under The Kilt
Anything related to Scottish culture, cuisine, language, history and so on. Does not include Gaelic words unless acceptable (roughly speaking!) in a wider sense.
brae, machair, loch, burn, inverness, shieling, camanachd, shinty, diddy, bhoy, ghillie, brownie and 393 more...
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The braggadocio recipe
A selection of English* words ending with a vowel (except "y", "ea", ie", "ee", "oo", "ea", "ou") that is REALLY pronounced.
My favorite English words, by the way.
The good twin of The ...braggadocio, recipe, encyclopedia, solo, gnu, flu, maybe, apocope, mini, arrhythmia, folio, stereo and 197 more...
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Rogue's Words for bonnie lads n lassies
tinchel, glen, sassenach, guddle, brae, bonnie, eejit, deerhound, hoonds, lassie, laddie, heiland and 188 more...
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pax australiana
first in, best dr..., chalk and cheese, chuck a sickie, banana bender, sandgroper, croweater, budgie smuggler, bludge, bathers, swimmers, bogan, buck's night and 73 more...
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Magic or Madness
Words from the glossaries in the back of the novels.
ambo, arse, bickie, biscuit, bloke, boong, bottlebrush, bronze medallion, bugger, bunyip, cardie, chips and 79 more...
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Un
My favourite unwords. Please feel free to suggest.
unsleazed, unstomach, unclad, undead, unlit, unlablike, unrugged, unhandy, unrubber, unprincely, unchafferable, unsunned and 41 more...
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W.E.L.D.E.R.
réchauffé, gast, dere, heller, arête, wair, tut, shad, tipi, emeu, codon, unco and 65 more...
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list 1
Tweets
Looking for tweets for unco.
lampbane Uncoordinated. Oct 4, 2008
bilby Sense is usually negative. Burns' poem 'Address to the Unco Guid' is an attack on the rigidly righteous. Dec 28, 2007