Word.ws English Dictionary

unkind

Syllables: un·kindUK/ʌnˈkaɪnd/

unkind adjective: lacking kindness, sympathy, benevolence, gratitude, or similar; cruel, harsh or unjust; ungrateful.

Adjective

unkind (comparative unkinder or more unkind, superlative unkindest or most unkind)

  1. Lacking kindness, sympathy, benevolence, gratitude, or similar; cruel, harsh or unjust; ungrateful.
    • Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
      This was the most unkindest cut of all;
      For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
      Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
      Quite vanquish’d him: then burst his mighty heart;1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Yet was it ne’er my Fate, from thee to find
      A Deed ungentle, or a Word unkind:
      When others curst the Auth’ress of their Woe,
      Thy Pity check’d my Sorrows in their Flow:1720, Homer, “Book XXIV”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume VI, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 189, lines 968–971
  2. (obsolete) Not kind; contrary to nature or type; unnatural.
    • […] A Feauer is an vnkinde heate, that commeth out of the heart, and passeth into all the members of the bodye, and grieueth the working of the bodye.1582, Stephen Batman, transl., Batman vppon Bartholome His Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum, London, Book 7, Chapter 33
    • Crowes will not feed their yong til 9. daies old,
      Because their vnkind colour makes them doubt
      Them to be theirs;1617, John Davies, Wits Bedlam, London, Epigram 116
  3. (obsolete) Having no race or kindred; childless.
    • O, had thy mother borne so hard a mind,
      She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC

unkind meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

unkind in Hindi

unkind
निर्दयी nirdayī

unkind in Tamil

கொடிய, இரக்கமற்ற

unkind in Marathi

निर्दयी

unkind in Urdu

unkind
نردیی nirdayī
More languagesFewer languages
unkind in Bengali
অকৃপ okrip
unkind in Telugu
దయలేనిది
unkind in Malayalam
ദയ ഇല്ലാത്ത, അദയ, വിദയ, നിർദ്ദയമായ
unkind in Gujarati
નિર્દયી
unkind in Odia
ନିର୍ଦ୍ଦଯ଼
unkind in Nepali
निर्दयी

Examples of unkind in a sentence

  • Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter II, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page...
  • Before the day I met you, life was so unkind / But you're the key to my peace of mind1967, Carole King, Gerry Goffin, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, performed by Aretha Franklin:
  • We had to learn that to refuse such gifts, which represented serious sacrifice, was more unkind than to accept them.1974, Laurence William Wylie, Village in the Vaucluse, 3rd edition, page 175:
  • In the strictness with which he holds this view he belongs in the company of the novelists I have cited, except that he is unkinder and less charitable than they are.2000, Edward W. Said, “On Lost Causes”, in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, page 540:

All 14 example sentences with unkind

Forms of unkind

comparativeunkinder
comparativemore unkind
superlativeunkindest
superlativemost unkind

Origin of unkind

Inherited from Middle English unkynde; equivalent to un- + kind.

Words formed from unkind

  • unkindest cut

Words that rhyme with unkind

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about unkind

What does unkind mean?
Unkind means lacking kindness, sympathy, benevolence, gratitude, or similar; cruel, harsh or unjust; ungrateful.
What is unkind in Hindi?
Unkind in Hindi is निर्दयी (nirdayī). See Unkind meaning in Hindi.
How do you use unkind in a sentence?
Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.
What part of speech is unkind?
Unkind is an adjective.
How do you pronounce unkind?
Unkind is pronounced /ʌnˈkaɪnd/ (UK).

Words near unkind in the dictionary

  1. unkilned
  2. unkilt
  3. unkilted
  4. unkilting
  5. unkilts
  6. unkind
  7. unkindeness
  8. unkinder
  9. unkindest
  10. unkindhearted
  11. unkindled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unkind (page history and authors); निर्दयी (Hindi) (page history and authors); unkind (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); unkind (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); نردیی (Urdu) (page history and authors); অকৃপ (Bengali) (page history and authors); unkind (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unkind (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); unkind (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unkind (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unkind (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-unkind.oga.

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