UNCONGENIAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does uncongenial mean? 

• UNCONGENIAL (adjective)
  The adjective UNCONGENIAL has 3 senses:

1. not suitable to your tastes or needs

2. very unfavorable to life or growth

3. used of plant stock or scions; incapable of being grafted

  Familiarity information: UNCONGENIAL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNCONGENIAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not suitable to your tastes or needs

Synonyms:

incompatible; uncongenial

Context example:

the task was uncongenial to one sensitive to rebuffs

Similar:

disagreeable; unsympathetic (not agreeing with your tastes or expectations)

Also:

incompatible (not compatible)

unfriendly (not disposed to friendship or friendliness)

unsympathetic (not sympathetic or disposed toward)

Antonym:

congenial (suitable to your needs)

Derivation:

uncongeniality (a disposition not to be congenial)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Very unfavorable to life or growth

Synonyms:

hostile; uncongenial; unfriendly

Context example:

the unfriendly environment at high altitudes

Similar:

inhospitable (unfavorable to life or growth)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Used of plant stock or scions; incapable of being grafted

Similar:

incompatible (not compatible)

 Context examples 

She found us here; and presented her uncongenial cheek, the little wrinkles in it filled with hair powder, to Dora to be kissed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"I don't care," and Jo shut the door, feeling that food was an uncongenial topic just then.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

All this she had said, and with the earnestness of sincerity; yet this was not enough, for he immediately denied there being anything uncongenial in their characters, or anything unfriendly in their situations; and positively declared, that he would still love, and still hope!

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere.

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

Don't resent (as I think you have a general disposition to do) what may be uncongenial to you in him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)