Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or condition of being unkempt.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a lack of order and tidiness; not cared for

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

unkempt +‎ -ness

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Examples

  • He's worked in politics pretty much his entire professional life, developing a reputation for insane hours and comical unkemptness in the Clinton administration, attaching himself to think tanks and writing a policy book "The Pro-Growth Progressive" during the Bush years, and then joining the Obama White House in a position that was far beneath the role he'd served for Bill Clinton.

    Will Gene Sperling replace Larry Summers? Ezra Klein 2010

  • Untamed locks were the signature style of sexually unchaste or barbarian women like the British warrior Queen Boudicca, women in mourning whose show of unkemptness was appropriate in the context of their grief, or else the special preserve of goddesses, who were exempt from the usual civic norms.

    Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010

  • These are all over the place, and contribute mightily to the impression of unkemptness that pervades everything.

    A Much Too Long Short Vacation « Hyperpat’s HyperDay 2008

  • However, denying an individual a firearm because of simple hurriedness/unkemptness fits (1) and (2) because the customer may return at a later time with a different mindset/wardrobe.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Consumer Supremacy? 2009

  • It was basically what you imagine when you think of LA, and I hadn't actually had had much of it until then - in fact, a distinctive characteristic of the city seems to be to connect items of interest and/or beauty a museum, a farmers' market, Hollywood, whatever with enormous patches of great squalor and - not quite ugliness, nor run-downness, but...unkemptness maybe.

    It is perfectly possible to get around LA by bus Ra 2009

  • It was basically what you imagine when you think of LA, and I hadn't actually had had much of it until then - in fact, a distinctive characteristic of the city seems to be to connect items of interest and/or beauty a museum, a farmers' market, Hollywood, whatever with enormous patches of great squalor and - not quite ugliness, nor run-downness, but...unkemptness maybe.

    Archive 2009-11-01 Ra 2009

  • She's almost Martha Stewart-like in unkemptness, you know?

    John McCain, too rich to be President. Ann Althouse 2008

  • This may seem harmless at first, or even desirable, but since nothing is wholly pure it leads us to grow heartless with the unkemptness of existence, and to think we can make order by imposing rigid rules.

    The Conversation Between Soul and Spirit William Harryman 2007

  • The longer Harry looked at Neville, the worse he appeared: One of his eyes was swollen yellow and purple, there were gouge marks on his face, and his general air of unkemptness suggested that he had been living enough.

    Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Rowling, J. K. 2007

  • The longer Harry looked at Neville, the worse he appeared: One of his eyes was swollen yellow and purple, there were gouge marks on his face, and his general air of unkemptness suggested that he had been living enough.

    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Rowling, J. K. 2007

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