Word.ws English Dictionary

left much to be desired

left much to be desired is the simple past and past participle of leave much to be desired.

Meaning of leave much to be desired

Verb

leave much to be desired (third-person singular simple present leaves much to be desired, present participle leaving much to be desired, simple past and past participle left much to be desired)

  1. Synonym of leave a lot to be desired.
    • Southgate's side kept their nerve and discipline in the unsettling, intimidating surroundings of Budapest, with the behaviour of Hungary's fans leaving much to be desired, to turn up the heat and punish their opponents ruthlessly once they had gone ahead.2021 September 2, Phil McNulty, “Hungary 0-4 England”, in BBC

Questions about left much to be desired

What is left much to be desired the simple past and past participle of?
Left much to be desired is the simple past and past participle of leave much to be desired.

Words near left much to be desired in the dictionary

  1. left little to the imagination
  2. left luggage
  3. left main
  4. left mains
  5. Left May
  6. left much to be desired
  7. left no crumbs
  8. left no stone unturned
  9. left no trace
  10. left nullspace
  11. left nullspaces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: left much to be desired (page history and authors); leave much to be desired (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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Cite this entry: “left much to be desired.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/left_much_to_be_desired. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.