Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use unwieldy in a sentence

18 example sentences · adjective

Unwieldy means lacking strength; weak. Example: “The internet makes it easier for leaner businesses to disrupt the larger and more unwieldy ones.”

Examples of unwieldy by meaning

adjectiveDifficult to carry, handle, manage or operate because of its size, weight, shape or complexity.

  • She is popular with passengers as an all-weather vessel, but rather the reverse with yachtsmen as she has at times proved somewhat unwieldy, and certainly takes up a good deal of space in the narrow channels.1956 February, R. C. Riley, “The Lymington Railway and Isle of Wight Ferry”, in Railway Magazine, page 82
  • However, the constellation of Argo Navis was so huge and unwieldy that in the 1932 revision, the International Astronomical Union committee chopped it up into a keel (Carina), a poop (Puppis) and sails (Vela).1985, Patrick Moore, Stargazing: Astronomy without a telescope, Aurum Press, →ISBN, page 18
  • The railways that would be fused to create the unwieldy Northern Line were the City & South London and the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway, known as the 'Hampstead Tube'.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 175

More sentences with unwieldy

  • The internet makes it easier for leaner businesses to disrupt the larger and more unwieldy ones.From the entry disrupt
  • Flecks of spring green – the kind generated from radioactive waste – coat the unwieldy triangles.2022 April 20, Mariella Rudi, “Tostitos Hint of Lime has zero lime – but it’s still the perfect chip”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The…. From the entry kaleidoscope
  • With five squares, it would be a pentomino—nine, a nonomino, eleven, an unwieldy undecomino!2011 October 15, Maki Kaji, The Big Book of Visual Sudoku, Workman Publishing Company, page 118. From the entry domino
  • Segregated and unwieldy as the group might be, it was now well established, aggressive, and successful.1998, Stanley Sandler, Segregated Skies. From the entry spratmo
  • Challenger plumed himself like some unwieldy bird under the influence of flattery.1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine. From the entry plume
  • His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantic, and grown unwieldy from corpulency.1907, Arthur Conan Doyle, “3”, in Through the Magic Door. From the entry corpulency
  • In a number of paintings Hatch imposes totemic animals--lizards, dinosaurs, lions--in unexpected places: as decorative pins, unwieldy ties, chokingly large necklaces.1992 May 15, Effie Mihopoulos, “Silent Messengers”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry chokingly
  • But as was the case with pacemakers, external defibrillators were unwieldy, and the shocks they delivered—in the rare cases when patients were still conscious—were painful.2018, Sandeep Jauhar, Heart: a History, →ISBN, page 173. From the entry shock
  • However, it may have been too unwieldy for a large and growing city, and its business therefore narrowed as the other courts developed.2003, John Hamilton Baker, The Oxford History of the Laws of England: c. 900-1216, page 819. From the entry custumal
  • For Vajpayee, who is keen that he alone does not carry the can for his unwieldy alliance, it is a tough decision.1998 April 25, Arati R. Jerath, "18 partners hunt for one voice," Indian Express (Bombay) (retrieved 21 Oct 2008). From the entry carry the can
  • Posgam is a new district which has been carved out of the unwieldy Karghalik charge and placed under a Magistrate of the third class.1926 [1922 November 11], C. P. Skrine, “Yarkand, Khotan and Beyond”, in Chinese Central Asia, Methuen Publishing, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 109. From the entry Posgam
  • TOURTIÈRE, scrawled across the top of the white card in my mother’s unwieldy handwriting, an accent grave raising its head pointedly above the ‘E.’ Below, a list of ingredients.2018 November 30, Isabelle Bourgeault-Tassé, “How a family recipe taught me what’s at stake when Franco-Ontarians lose their roots”, in…. From the entry accent grave
  • It was unwieldy, included a fatal bombing at Centennial Olympic Park and is largely considered the most overcommercialized Olympics in the history of the modern Games.2007 July 15, “Chicago Gets Advice on How to Secure and Run a Successful Olympics”, in New York Times. From the entry overcommercialize
  • When even this proved too unwieldy for an elite who wanted a more upscale machine tailored to their tastes, there appeared the white-glove National Gay Task Force.1981 August 15, John Mitzel, “Meetings and Mayhem, History and Hype”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 5, page 13. From the entry white-glove
  • That fall had left on her mind an ineradicable fear of taking risks with her unwieldy limbs, even for the reward of taking over the supervision of her own shop.1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 72. From the entry ineradicable

Meaning of unwieldy

  1. adjective Lacking strength; weak.
  2. adjective Ungraceful in movement.
  3. adjective Difficult to carry, handle, manage or operate because of its size, weight, shape or complexity.

Full definition of unwieldy

Questions about unwieldy in a sentence

How do you use unwieldy in a sentence?
Unwieldy is used as an adjective. For example: “The internet makes it easier for leaner businesses to disrupt the larger and more unwieldy ones.”
What is a short sentence with unwieldy?
“Challenger plumed himself like some unwieldy bird under the influence of flattery.”
What does unwieldy mean?
Unwieldy means lacking strength; weak.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unwieldy (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use unwieldy in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/unwieldy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.