Word.ws English Dictionary

ungood

UK/ˌʌnˈɡʊd/

ungood adjective: not good; bad.

Adjective

ungood (comparative ungooder or more ungood, superlative ungoodest or most ungood)

  1. Not good; bad.
    • An unjust judge, as one well observes, is a cold fire, a dark sun, a dry sea, a mare mortuum, an ungood god, contradictio in adjecto, monsters, not men, much less gods.1660, George Swinnock, “The Beauty of Magistracy: An Exposition of Psalm LXXXII.”, in Works, volume IV, published 1868, The Beauty of Magistracy, page 236
    • Now to make a short story shorter, we all know this is very ungood for a new motor and I do not want to thank the person or persons who unwittingly left their fingerprints, of which I have photostatic copies, so that might detect the presence of graphite before staring the motor.1947 March 8, “Dirty Work at the X-Roads?”, in Billboard, volume 59, number 11, Nielsen Business Media, Inc., published 15 March 1947, →ISSN, page 50
  2. (in plural) Those who are not good; the wicked, evil, or bad.
    • The authorities desire to deceive humankind, because they perceived him being in a kinship to the truly good. So they took the word 'good', they applied it to the ungood so that thru words they might deceive and bind him within the ungood.2009, Andra Chambers, The Book of Wisdom, page 88

Noun

UK/ˈʌnˌɡʊd/

ungood (uncountable)

  1. (rare) Lack or absence of good; goodlessness; bad
    • Here we can see that electricity is merely a manifestation of the fundamental dichotomy of the dualistic universe, the struggle between Good and Ungood, between Yin and Yang.1953, Tech Engineering News, volume 35, page 34
    • This government has bought the myths and is determined to foist this 'ungood' on every Australian citizen. I say 'ungood' deliberately.(Can we date this quote?), Parliamentary Debates Australia: Senate, page 5982

Examples of ungood in a sentence

  • But it was from that ungood that I put together something better: I had put together hope.1988, Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H., →ISBN, page 5:
  • Islam is ungood; atheism, file sharing, civil liberties and homosexuality are doubleplusungood.2010 June 6, "Tim", “Re:McDonald's Ad Promotes Teenage Homosexuality”, in alt.socieity.liberalism (Usenet):
  • “[…] In some, however, the ungood has turned inside out.2013, Shana Abé, The Truelove Bride:

Synonyms of ungood

Antonyms

Forms of ungood

comparativeungooder
comparativemore ungood
superlativeungoodest
superlativemost ungood

Origin of ungood

From Middle English ungod, from Old English ungōd, equivalent to un- (“not”) + good (adjective). Popularised by its appearance in Newspeak, a fictional language coined in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), a dystopian novel by George Orwell.

From Middle English ungod (“evil”), equivalent to un- (“lack of”) + good (noun). Cognate with German Low German Ungood (“bad, evil”), German Ungüte (“ungood”).

Words formed from ungood

Phrases with ungood

Questions about ungood

What does ungood mean?
Ungood means not good; bad.
How do you use ungood in a sentence?
But it was from that ungood that I put together something better: I had put together hope.
What part of speech is ungood?
Ungood can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce ungood?
Ungood is pronounced /ˌʌnˈɡʊd/ (UK).

Words near ungood in the dictionary

  1. ungold
  2. ungolden
  3. ungolfable
  4. ungolfed
  5. ungone
  6. ungood
  7. ungooder
  8. ungoodest
  9. ungoodliness
  10. ungoodly
  11. ungoodness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ungood (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.

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