Gangly

adj

adj ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Tall and thin, especially so as to cause physical awkwardness.

    "I should have shot that long gangly lubber they called Hank, if I could have done it without crippling six or seven other people—but of course I couldn't, […]"

Adjective
  1. 1
    tall and thin wordnet
  2. 2
    tall and thin and having long slender limbs wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bonycarrioncolossalcoltishelbowyelbowy

Example

More examples

"Tom was a gangly, uncoordinated child who grew into a clumsy adult."

Etymology

An American English alteration of gangling.

Related phrases

gangly drink of water

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