Word.ws English Dictionary

Ugly American

Ugly American is the alternative form of ugly American.

Noun capitalized: ugly American

ugly American (plural ugly Americans)

  1. (idiomatic) An American government representative, tourist, or businessperson who, in dealing with people of other nations, is haughty, rude, meddlesome, chauvinistic, or jingoistic.
    • The Republican House managers were acting like ugly Americans abroad who think that if they talk loudly and slowly, foreigners will understand them.1999 January 17, Maureen Dowd, “Liberties: Soft-Porn Nation”, in New York Times, retrieved 17 Jul 2017
    • Quinn throws himself into the role of the vain, heavy-drinking bully with gusto[…]. He's precisely the kind of ugly American people cringe upon meeting—loud, demanding and arrogant, a bottle of Scotch never far from his elbow.2010 April 8, Linda Barnard, “The Eclipse: Ghosts among the living”, in The Star, retrieved 17 Jul 2017

Forms of Ugly American

pluralUgly Americans
pluralugly Americans
alternative formUgly American

Origin of Ugly American

From the novel The Ugly American (1958) by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick (though the character in the novel is only physically ugly and otherwise morally upright).

Questions about Ugly American

What does Ugly American mean?
Ugly American means an American government representative, tourist, or businessperson who, in dealing with people of other nations, is haughty, rude, meddlesome, chauvinistic, or jingoistic.
What is Ugly American the alternative form of?
Ugly American is the alternative form of ugly American.
What part of speech is Ugly American?
Ugly American is a noun.
What is the plural of Ugly American?
The plural of Ugly American is Ugly Americans.

Words near Ugly American in the dictionary

  1. uglinesses
  2. uglis
  3. Uglish
  4. uglisome
  5. ugly
  6. Ugly American
  7. Ugly Americans
  8. ugly as bull-beef
  9. ugly as sin
  10. ugly cried
  11. ugly cries

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ugly American (page history and authors); ugly American (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-ugly American.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Ugly American.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ugly_american. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.