Maladroit

//ˌmæl.əˈdɹɔɪt// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Somebody who is inept, or lacking in skill, or talent.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Not adroit; awkward, clumsy, inept.

    "Like the maladroit boy himself, the director does not believe in warming his audience up with narrative foreplay, and it's the same story when we cut to the family home of Julio's girlfriend, whose parents allow him into her bedroom to help her look for her passport, and she gleefully wrenches her tracksuit bottoms down."

Adjective
  1. 1
    not adroit wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
ineptbutterfingeredclumsyall thumbsawkwardbad

Example

More examples

"The president's lack of a defined contingency plan is maladroit at best."

Etymology

From French maladroit, from mal- (“bad, badly”) + adroit (“skilful”).

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