AWKWARD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does awkward mean? 

• AWKWARD (adjective)
  The adjective AWKWARD has 6 senses:

1. causing inconvenience

2. lacking grace or skill in manner or movement or performance

3. difficult to handle or manage especially because of shape

4. not elegant or graceful in expression

5. hard to deal with; especially causing pain or embarrassment

6. socially uncomfortable; unsure and constrained in manner

  Familiarity information: AWKWARD used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AWKWARD (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Causing inconvenience

Context example:

they arrived at an awkward time

Similar:

inconvenient (not suited to your comfort, purpose or needs)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lacking grace or skill in manner or movement or performance

Context example:

his clumsy fingers produced an awkward knot

Similar:

clumsy; clunky; gawky; ungainly; unwieldy (lacking grace in movement or posture)

graceless; ungraceful (lacking grace; clumsy)

labored; laboured; strained (lacking natural ease)

wooden (lacking ease or grace)

Also:

maladroit (not adroit)

ugly (displeasing to the senses)

Antonym:

graceful (characterized by beauty of movement, style, form, or execution)

Derivation:

awkwardness (unskillfulness resulting from a lack of training)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Difficult to handle or manage especially because of shape

Synonyms:

awkward; bunglesome; clumsy; ungainly

Context example:

the cello, a rather ungainly instrument for a girl

Similar:

unmanageable; unwieldy (difficult to use or handle or manage because of size or weight or shape)

Derivation:

awkwardness (trouble in carrying or managing caused by bulk or shape)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Not elegant or graceful in expression

Synonyms:

awkward; clumsy; cumbersome; ill-chosen; inapt; inept

Context example:

if the rumor is true, can anything be more inept than to repeat it now?

Similar:

infelicitous (not appropriate in application; defective)

Derivation:

awkwardness (unskillfulness resulting from a lack of training)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Hard to deal with; especially causing pain or embarrassment

Synonyms:

awkward; embarrassing; sticky; unenviable

Context example:

in the unenviable position of resorting to an act he had planned to save for the climax of the campaign

Similar:

difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)

Derivation:

awkwardness (the quality of an embarrassing situation)

Sense 6

Meaning:

Socially uncomfortable; unsure and constrained in manner

Synonyms:

awkward; ill at ease; uneasy

Context example:

was always uneasy with strangers

Similar:

uncomfortable (conducive to or feeling mental discomfort)

Derivation:

awkwardness (the inelegance of someone stiff and unrelaxed (as by embarrassment))

 Context examples 

This was awkward, for her firm-fleshed body had become a cat's.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

There was a silence I might almost call awkward, till I broke it, saying:

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

‘Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,’ said I.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yes, sir, I fear that I am a little late, but the trains were awkward.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And I suppose he might have broke his neck by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“Your regulation is rather awkward to strangers,” said Miss Murdstone.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Furthermore, he got over being awkward and self-conscious.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I've tried, because one feels awkward in company not to do as everybody else is doing, but I don't seem to get on, said Jo, forgetting to play mentor.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The tent was rolled into an awkward bundle three times as large as it should have been.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

When we married, my wife made over all her property to me—rather against my will, for I saw how awkward it would be if my business affairs went wrong.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)