ungainlie

Adjective

ungainly (comparative ungainlier or more ungainly, superlative ungainliest or most ungainly)

1. Clumsy; lacking grace.
   • They being a very ſilly ſort of People, had no other way to ſhew their Spight and Reſentment, than by making Mouths at the Dutch as they paſſed by, and ſometimes Spitting upon them. To break them of that ungainly Cuſtom, we made a reſolution amongſt us, never to let any paſs by that did ſo, whether...1700, Christopher Fryke, Christopher Schewitzer, “chapter VII”, in S. L., transl., A Relation of Two Several Voyages Made into the East-Indies, by Christopher Fryke, Surg. and Christopher Schewitzer....
2. Gangling

   Synonyms:

   gawky

3. Difficult to move or to manage; unwieldy.
   • My lady brought with her from England a most profane instrument, a lute of ungainlie height, at which Master Higginson looketh doubtfully as if it were an instrument of sin, and methinketh Mistresses Mary and Elizabeth Fenwick thinketh it also […]1896, Emily Malbone Morgan, A Lady of the Olden Time, Hartford, Conn.: Belknap and Warfield, →OCLC, page 42
4. (obsolete) Unsuitable; unprofitable.
   • And this is the excellency and perfection of a Christian, infinitely above the reach of the proudest moralists; this is the repentance of a Christian, whereby he makes up those defects which were most eminently notorious in the heathen; this is the impression of the humbling spirit, which proud...1850, Henry Hammond, John Fell, “Sermon XXV. Acts xvii. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to repent.”, in The Miscellaneous Theological Works...

See all 6 meanings of ungainly