Word.ws English Dictionary

ugly ducklings

ugly ducklings is the plural of ugly duckling.

Meaning of ugly duckling

Noun

ugly duckling (plural ugly ducklings)

  1. (idiomatic) A young person who is ugly, but who is expected to become beautiful or handsome as they mature.
    • The ugly duckling has become a very fine swan, and Rachel Sprigg and her team have worked hard to ensure that Derby is a worthy winner of that coveted National Rail Award. They can be proud of their achievements.2019 December 4, Andy Coward, “Derby's crowning achievement”, in Rail, page 57
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see ugly, duckling.

Questions about ugly ducklings

What is ugly ducklings the plural of?
Ugly ducklings is the plural of ugly duckling.

Words near ugly ducklings in the dictionary

  1. ugly cry
  2. ugly crying
  3. ugly customer
  4. ugly customers
  5. ugly duckling
  6. ugly ducklings
  7. ugly finder
  8. ugly finders
  9. ugly hot
  10. ugly law
  11. ugly man

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ugly ducklings (page history and authors); ugly duckling (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:

Cite this entry: “ugly ducklings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ugly_ducklings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.