Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not ideal; unimaginative; realistic; material; coarse.
  • Having no ideas; destitute of ideas, thoughts, or mental action.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Not ideal; real; unimaginative.
  • adjective rare Unideaed.

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

  • adjective Not ideal.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

un- +‎ ideal

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Examples

  • The object is unideal, that is, the novel, external element is inharmonious with the revived and internal element by suggesting which the object has been apperceived.

    The Sense of Beauty Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory George Santayana 1907

  • Our criticism has never opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser or more unqualified prose than The Enemy of the People, without a tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book.

    Henrik Ibsen 2008

  • Our criticism has never opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser or more unqualified prose than The Enemy of the People, without a tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book.

    Henrik Ibsen 2008

  • Our criticism has never opened its arms wide enough to embrace all imaginative literature as poetry, and in the English sense nothing in the world's drama is denser or more unqualified prose than _The Enemy of the People_, without a tinge of romance or rhetoric, as "unideal" as a blue-book.

    Henrik Ibsen Edmund Gosse 1888

  • We're friends, though she's aware I'm 'unideal' as a student her choice words echo briefly.

    Carolina Grüber: II Ivan R. 2011

  • Large quantities of books are often kept in the most unideal weather conditions and only the fully prepared bookseller gets the worms.

    Archive 2008-12-01 2008

  • Monday continues with unideal air quality and hot, hazy, humid conditions.

    Forecast: Who knew 90 would feel nice? 2010

  • Large quantities of books are often kept in the most unideal weather conditions and only the fully prepared bookseller gets the worms.

    what do booksellers really want? 2008

  • But what I would like to see more of from the right is, a recognition that there is indeed a *balance* here, which means one cannot automatically dismiss proposals as “too socialist” or “too much regulation” etc. — one must argue proposals based on their specific merits and flaws, in the context of the unideal, complicated society in which we live.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Ayn Rand’s Contributions 2009

  • Mike: But what I would like to see more of from the right is, a recognition that there is indeed a *balance* here, which means one cannot automatically dismiss proposals as “too socialist” or “too much regulation” etc. — one must argue proposals based on their specific merits and flaws, in the context of the unideal, complicated society in which welive.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Ayn Rand’s Contributions 2009

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