noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A lack of coordination or elegance; the condition or quality of being clumsy. countable, uncountable

   "He dropped them not out of spite, but out of clumsiness."

2. 2
   the inelegance of someone stiff and unrelaxed (as by embarrassment) wordnet
3. 3
   the carriage of someone whose movements and posture are ungainly or inelegant wordnet
4. 4
   unskillfulness resulting from a lack of training wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

awkwardnessawkwardnessbad tastebarbarismbothercacophony

Example

More examples

"Hunger often produces immortal poems. Abundance, only indigestion and clumsiness."

Etymology

From clumsy + -ness.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.