Word.ws English Dictionary

unflattering

unflattering adjective: not flattering. Also the present participle and gerund of unflatter.

Adjective

unflattering (comparative more unflattering, superlative most unflattering)

  1. Not flattering.
    • Daniel Halper, online editor at the conservative Weekly Standard and the author of Clinton, Inc., an unflattering portrait of the Clintons, theorizes Huma had little choice after the second sexting fiasco but to stick with Hillary.2016 January 31, “Is Huma Abedin Hillary Clinton’s Secret Weapon or Her Next Big Problem?”, in Vanity Fair, retrieved 21 Jan 2016

Also used as

unflattering is also the present participle and gerund of unflatter.

Forms of unflattering

comparativemore unflattering
superlativemost unflattering

Origin of unflattering

From un- + flattering.

Words formed from unflattering

Questions about unflattering

What does unflattering mean?
Unflattering means not flattering.
What part of speech is unflattering?
Unflattering is an adjective.

Words near unflattering in the dictionary

  1. unflattening
  2. unflattens
  3. unflatter
  4. unflatterable
  5. unflattered
  6. unflattering
  7. unflatteringly
  8. unflatteringness
  9. unflatters
  10. unflaunted
  11. unflavored

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unflattering (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: “unflattering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unflattering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.