UNPLEASANT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does unpleasant mean? 

• UNPLEASANT (adjective)
  The adjective UNPLEASANT has 1 sense:

1. offensive or disagreeable; causing discomfort or unhappiness

  Familiarity information: UNPLEASANT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNPLEASANT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Offensive or disagreeable; causing discomfort or unhappiness

Context example:

unpleasant odors

Similar:

unpleasing (unpleasant or disagreeable to the senses)

unhappy (causing discomfort)

ungrateful (disagreeable)

sharp; sharp-worded; tart (harsh)

rebarbative; repellant; repellent (serving or tending to repel)

afflictive; painful; sore (causing misery or pain or distress)

acerb; acerbic; acid; acrid; bitter; blistering; caustic; sulfurous; sulphurous; virulent; vitriolic (harsh or corrosive in tone)

beastly; god-awful; hellish ((informal) very unpleasant)

dour; forbidding; grim (harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance)

embarrassing; mortifying (causing to feel shame or chagrin or vexation)

harsh; rough (unpleasantly stern)

harsh (unpleasantly rough or jarring to the senses)

hot (very unpleasant or even dangerous)

Also:

displeasing (causing displeasure or lacking pleasing qualities)

unpalatable (not pleasant or acceptable to the taste or mind)

offensive (unpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses)

awful; nasty (offensive or even (of persons) malicious)

ill-natured (having an irritable and unpleasant disposition)

disagreeable (not to your liking)

inaesthetic; unaesthetic (violating aesthetic canons or requirements; deficient in tastefulness or beauty)

Attribute:

pleasantness; sweetness (the quality of giving pleasure)

Antonym:

pleasant (affording pleasure; being in harmony with your taste or likings)

Derivation:

unpleasantness (the quality of giving displeasure)

unpleasantness (the feeling caused by disagreeable stimuli; one pole of a continuum of states of feeling)

 Context examples 

To be found there, even by a servant, would be unpleasant; but by the general (and he seemed always at hand when least wanted), much worse!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Could there have been any unpleasant glances?

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Then out of a very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others could out of a deal, and that made things unpleasant.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was a correspondence which Fanny found quite as unpleasant as she had feared.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Mr. Weston, his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained; and the young man's spirits now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I thought of my fifty-guinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of the unpleasant night which seemed to be before me.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

To be with such a man for an hour is unpleasant.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A condition in which a person takes a drug over time, and unpleasant physical symptoms occur if the drug is suddenly stopped or taken in smaller doses.

(Physical dependence, NCI Dictionary)

He sank daily, and my mother and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without paying much regard to our unpleasant guest.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Another experiment which he made was of a more unpleasant nature, and one which I am not likely ever to forget.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)