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ugly

Pronunciation: /ˈʌgli/

Translate ugly | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of ugly

adjective (uglier, ugliest)

  • 1unpleasant or repulsive, especially in appearance:she thought she was ugly and fat the ugly sound of a fire alarm
  • 2involving or likely to involve violence or other unpleasantness:the mood in the room turned ugly
  • unpleasantly suggestive; causing disquiet:ugly rumours persisted that there had been a cover-up
  • morally repugnant:racism and its most ugly manifestations, racial attacks and harassment

Derivatives

uglification

noun

uglify

verb (uglifies, uglifying, uglified)

uglily

adverb

ugliness

noun

Origin:

Middle English: from Old Norse uggligr 'to be dreaded', from ugga 'to dread'

Spelling rule

If a word ends in a consonant plus -y, change the -y to an -i before adding any ending (unless the ending already begins with an -i): (uglier, ugliest).

ugly in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of ugly in the US English dictionary

Nearby words

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