CLUMSY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Clumsy

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/klˈəmzi/ Listen

adjective

Clumsy adj. (compar. clumsier; superl. clumsiest)

Stiff or benumbed, as with cold. (Obs.)

Without skill or grace; wanting dexterity, nimbleness, or readiness; stiff; awkward, as if benumbed; unwieldy; unhandy; hence; ill-made, misshapen, or inappropriate; as, a clumsy person; a clumsy workman; clumsy fingers; a clumsy gesture; a clumsy excuse. "But thou in clumsy verse, unlicked, unpointed, Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed."

Synonyms: See Awkward.

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Etymology of 'Clumsy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Clumsy" Quotes from Famous Books

... fellow-officers had from the start been very much against his taste. "They don't see the defender of the fatherland in him," thought he, "but merely the green man, unused to strict discipline and to the narrowly bound round of dull duties, the clumsy, ungainly recruit, or the smarter, but even more unsympathetic private of some experience whose drill is an unpleasant task for them, and who, they know, hates and abominates them in his heart." And he remembered scenes of such brutality, ...

— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... McConnell sat down and wrote Peg a long letter, leaving the choice in her hands, but telling her how much he would like to have her back with him. He wrote the letter again and again and each time destroyed it. It seemed so clumsy. ...

— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... the sea. We shall wander along the shore, and look at their fishing-vessels, which seem so small when they are on the water, but which loom up high above our heads when they are drawn up on the shore—some with their clumsy-looking rudders hauled up out of danger, and others with rudder and keel resting together on the rough beach. Anchors, buoys, bits of chains, and hawsers lie about the shore, while nets are hanging at the doors of the fishermen's cottages, some hung up to dry and some hung ...

— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... Drunkenness.—When a man has become addicted to strong drink, his muscles become partly paralyzed, so that he cannot walk as steadily or speak as readily or as clearly as before. His fingers are clumsy, and his movements uncertain. If he is an artist or a jeweller, he cannot do as fine work as when he is sober. When a man gets very drunk, he is for a time completely paralyzed, so that he cannot walk or move, and seems ...

— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg

... to pour out of the short funnel of the working engine on the boatyard scow. It was a clumsy-looking craft—-a mere floating platform, with engine, propeller, tiller and a derrick arrangement, but it had done a lot of good work ...

— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

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