unkempt

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“
Many of the men wore rough beards, unkempt, and yellow, weather-worn hunting shirts, often stained with blood.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. adjective Not combed: unkempt hair.
  2. adjective Not properly maintained; disorderly or untidy: an unkempt garden. See Synonyms at sloppy.
  3. adjective Unpolished; rude.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • "He was then an ordinary-looking young fellow," says Mr. Ott, "dirty as any of the other workmen, unkempt, and not much better dressed than a tramp, but I immediately felt that there was a great deal in him." —  Edison, His Life and Inventions
  • He was unkempt, his shirttails out, his boots untied. —  F ;SF; - vol 093 issue 04-05 - October-November 1997
  • His dark hair was unkempt, and a pale scar shaped like a spider blazed on his left cheek. —  Witch Gate.htm
  • His hair was spiky and unkempt, and his blue eyes darted from her eyes to her lips to some point in the sky, as if he was unable to decide what to look at. —  InterzoneScienceFictionandFantasyMagazine#214
  • Her dark hair was unkempt, and she kept twisting a lank tendril round and round her finger. —  Celtic Riddle
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

disheveled ·  unshaven ·  untidy ·  shaggy ·  unwashed ·  grizzle ·  haggard ·  curly ·  bushy ·  sweaty ·  bedraggled ·  dirty
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English unkemd : un-, not; see un-1 + kembed, past participle of kemben, to comb (from Old English cemban; see gembh- in Indo-European roots).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. A later form of unkembed, also unkemmed; from Middle English unkempt; from un- + kembed, kempt, past participle of kemb.
 

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/ənˈkɛmt/
by American Heritage

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