English Dictionary

UNTIDY (untidied, untidier, untidiest)

IPA (US): 

Irregular inflected forms: untidied  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation, untidier  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation, untidiest  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation

 Dictionary entry overview: What does untidy mean? 

UNTIDY (adjective)
  The adjective UNTIDY has 1 sense:

1. not neat and tidyplay

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


 Dictionary entry details 


UNTIDY (adjective)

 Declension: comparative and superlative 
Comparative: untidier  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Superlative: untidiest  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation


Sense 1

Meaning:

Not neat and tidy

Context example:

untidy and casual about money

Similar:

blowsy; blowzy; slatternly; sluttish (characteristic of or befitting a slut or slattern; used especially of women)

cluttered; littered (filled or scattered with a disorderly accumulation of objects or rubbish)

disheveled; dishevelled; frowzled; rumpled; tousled (in disarray; extremely disorderly)

disorderly; higgledy-piggledy; hugger-mugger; jumbled; topsy-turvy (in utter disorder)

frowsy; frowzy; slovenly (negligent of neatness especially in dress and person; habitually dirty and unkempt)

messy; mussy (dirty and disorderly)

scraggly (ragged, thin, or untidy in appearance)

sloppy (lacking neatness or order)

slouchy (lacking stiffness in form or posture)

rambling; sprawling; straggling; straggly (spreading out in different directions or distributed irregularly)

unkempt (not properly maintained or cared for)

Also:

dirty; soiled; unclean (soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime)

unfastidious (marked by an absence of due or proper care or attention to detail; not concerned with cleanliness)

ungroomed (not neat and smart in appearance)

Antonym:

tidy (marked by order and cleanliness in appearance or habits)

Derivation:

untidiness (the trait of being untidy and messy)

untidiness (the condition of being untidy)


 Context examples 


They both rolled on to their feet in an untidy sort of manner, when we came in, and said, “Halloa, Murdstone! We thought you were dead!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It looks untidy, does it not, sir?

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

Her hair, so untidy, so blowsy!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Her solitary breakfast did not taste good, and the room seemed lonely and untidy, for Jo had not filled the vases, Beth had not dusted, and Amy's books lay scattered about.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth,—a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly self.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm the untidy badge; scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.

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

The inhabitants appeared to have a propensity to throw any little trifles they were not in want of, into the road: which not only made it rank and sloppy, but untidy too, on account of the cabbage-leaves.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
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