unwieldy

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
he marked--unwieldy, dark, and huge--The ship, his glory and his grief,--too vast For that still river's floating,--building far From mightier streams, amid the pastoral dells Of shepherd kings Niloiya spake again: "What said the Voice, thou well-beloved man?"

View all »
Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. adjective Difficult to carry or manage because of size, shape, weight, or complexity: an unwieldy parcel; an unwieldy bureaucracy.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

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

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • They're sprawling collections of disparate profit centers--complicated, unwieldy, and hard to manage.
  • Pizza boxes are the scourge of recycling--they are big, unwieldy, and take up too much space in the fridge and in the garbage.
  • Often unwieldy, and piled clumsily with cargo, one might reasonably suppose their safe piloting to be a nautical impossibility; yet so perfect is the skill—the instinct, rather—of these almost amphibious river- folk, that a little child, not uncommonly a girl, shall lead them. —  THE ENGLISH GOVERNESS AT THE SIAMESE COURT
  • The cause of Islam stood as yet in parlous condition, half-formulated, unwieldy, awaiting the moulding hand of persecution to develop it into a political and social system CHAPTER VI. —  Mahomet
  • So my books wishlist on Amazon had become a bit unwieldy, a bit out of control. —  A Life In Books
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 272 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

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

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 (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Early modern English also unweldie; from un- + wieldy.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ənˈwildi/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about twice a month.

Recently looked up

GlobalFoundaries · unsound · hallooing · non-conformity · epick

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

mamaroneck · maladministration · antidisestablishmentarianism · parsimonious · soliloquy