Word.ws English Dictionary

unkempt

Syllables: un·kempt/ˌʌnˈkɛmpt/

unkempt adjective: uncombed, dishevelled.

Adjective

unkempt (comparative more unkempt, superlative most unkempt)

  1. uncombed, dishevelled.
    • He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance.1916, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “John”, in Twilight in Italy, London: Duckworth and Co. […], →OCLC, pages 211–212
    • Men on cycles, lean-faced, unkempt, scorched along every country lane, shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to gaunt, staring figures of despair.1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 289
  2. (broadly, figuratively) Disorderly; untidy; messy; not kept up.
    • unkempt bedroom
    • And his egotism and conceit were not to be borne; and then he was both tawdry and dirty in his person; more greasily, mattedly unkempt than even a really successful pianist has any right to be, even in the best society.1894, George du Maurier, Trilby
  3. (figuratively) Rough; unpolished.

unkempt meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

unkempt in Tamil

பராமரிப்பற்ற, பேணுகையற்ற

unkempt in Urdu

بکھرا, بلاکنگھی, غیرمہذب

unkempt in Malayalam

scruffy, untidy, messy
വെടിപ്പില്ലാത്ത, പ്രവിതത, അഴിഞ്ഞുലഞ്ഞ, കുഴങ്ങിയ, വൃത്തിയില്ലാത്ത, അലങ്കോലമായ

unkempt in Kannada

ತಲೆಬಾಚದ, ಕೆದರಿದ, ಚೊಕ್ಕಟವಿಲ್ಲದ
More languagesFewer languages
unkempt in Vietnamese
bù xù

Examples of unkempt in a sentence

  • The unkempt young man had a certain slackerly charm.
  • There, in all his unkempt glory, stood Bruce Arians, the Gobblers’ backup quarterback for years.
  • They all looked dirty and unkempt, the girls with long greasy hair, theboys ditto, two with sideburns.

All 18 example sentences with unkempt

Synonyms of unkempt

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of unkempt

Forms of unkempt

comparativemore unkempt
superlativemost unkempt
alternative form (obsolete)uncompt

Origin of unkempt

From earlier unkembed, unkemmed, from Middle English unkempt (“uncombed”), equivalent to un- + kempt. Compare Old Norse úkembdr (uncombed; unkempt"; whence Icelandic ókembdur), German ungekämmt (“unkempt”), Dutch ongekamd. More at kemb.

Words formed from unkempt

Words that rhyme with unkempt

Questions about unkempt

What does unkempt mean?
Unkempt means uncombed, dishevelled.
What is unkempt in Tamil?
Unkempt in Tamil is பராமரிப்பற்ற, பேணுகையற்ற. See Unkempt meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is unkempt?
Unkempt is an adjective.
How do you pronounce unkempt?
Unkempt is pronounced /ˌʌnˈkɛmpt/ (UK).

Words near unkempt in the dictionary

  1. unkel
  2. Unkelbach
  3. unkels
  4. unkembed
  5. unkemmed
  6. unkempt
  7. unkemptitude
  8. unkemptly
  9. unkemptness
  10. unken
  11. unken reflex

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unkempt (page history and authors); unkempt (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); unkempt (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); unkempt (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); unkempt (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-unkempt.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-unkempt.wav.

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