UGLINESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ugliness mean? 

• UGLINESS (noun)
  The noun UGLINESS has 2 senses:

1. qualities of appearance that do not give pleasure to the senses

2. the quality of being wicked

  Familiarity information: UGLINESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UGLINESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Qualities of appearance that do not give pleasure to the senses

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("ugliness" is a kind of...):

appearance; visual aspect (outward or visible aspect of a person or thing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ugliness"):

unsightliness (ugliness that is unpleasant to look at)

grotesqueness; grotesquerie; grotesquery (ludicrous or incongruous unnaturalness or distortion)

garishness; gaudiness (strident color or excessive ornamentation)

hideousness (dreadful ugliness; horrible repulsiveness)

unattractiveness (an ugliness of appearance that is not appealing to viewers)

eyesore (something very ugly and offensive)

Antonym:

beauty (the qualities that give pleasure to the senses)

Derivation:

ugly (displeasing to the senses)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being wicked

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

nefariousness; ugliness; vileness; wickedness

Hypernyms ("ugliness" is a kind of...):

evil; evilness (the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ugliness"):

filthiness (moral corruption or pollution)

enormity (the quality of extreme wickedness)

Derivation:

ugly (morally reprehensible)

 Context examples 

I approached this tremendous being; I dared not again raise my eyes to his face, there was something so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

If it was cheap ugliness, I'd say nothing, but it costs as much as the other, and I don't get any satisfaction out of it.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He was, as the inspector had said, extremely dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its repulsive ugliness.

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

Good, as goodness might be measured in their particular class, hard-working for meagre wages and scorning the sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a gamble between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of more terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)