big enough and ugly enough
big enough and ugly enough adjective: mature, grown-up, old enough (with the implication that one can look after oneself and make one's own decisions).
Adjective
big enough and ugly enough
- Mature, grown-up, old enough (with the implication that one can look after oneself and make one's own decisions).
- Her aunt answered, 'You just go off my child. There are two young women here who are big enough and ugly enough to help me with the dishes.'2002, Nokuthula Mazibuko, In the Fast Lane, →ISBN, page 59
- Don't worry – he'll come home. He's big enough and ugly enough to look after himself.2014, Maggie Caldwell, Deceitful Desires, →ISBN, page 345
Forms of big enough and ugly enough
| alternative form | big and ugly enough |
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Origin of big enough and ugly enough
From the notion that youth, especially children, have a more beautiful and endearing appearance, thus maturity ought to make one not only bigger, but uglier too; though, in some cases, the opposite is true (see ugly duckling and its associated fairy tale, which illustrate such a case).
Questions about big enough and ugly enough
- What does big enough and ugly enough mean?
- Big enough and ugly enough means mature, grown-up, old enough (with the implication that one can look after oneself and make one's own decisions).
- What part of speech is big enough and ugly enough?
- Big enough and ugly enough is an adjective.
Words near big enough and ugly enough in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: big enough and ugly enough (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-big enough and ugly enough.wav.
Cite this entry: “big enough and ugly enough.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/big_enough_and_ugly_enough. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.