Gauche

//ɡəʊʃ// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Awkward or lacking in social graces; bumbling; apt to make gaffes.

    "Seeking by vulgar pomp and gauche display In 'good society', to make her way"

  2. 2
    Skewed, not plane. archaic
  3. 3
    Having a torsion angle of 60°. not-comparable
Adjective
  1. 1
    lacking social polish wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
gracelessall thumbsawkwardblankmindedblatantblunderheaded

Example

More examples

"Tom is so naive that his gauche manners can hardly offend anyone."

Etymology

Borrowed from French gauche (“left, awkward”), from gauchir (“to veer, turn”), from Old French gaucher (“to trample, walk clumsily”), from Frankish *walkan (“to full, trample”), from Proto-Germanic *walkaną (“to full, roll up”). Akin to Old High German walchan (“to knead”), Old English wealcian (“to roll up, curl”) and English walk, Old Norse valka (“to drag about”). More at walk.

Related phrases

social gracetorsion angle

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