UNGRATEFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ungrateful mean? 

• UNGRATEFUL (adjective)
  The adjective UNGRATEFUL has 2 senses:

1. not feeling or showing gratitude

2. disagreeable

  Familiarity information: UNGRATEFUL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNGRATEFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not feeling or showing gratitude

Synonyms:

thankless; ungrateful; unthankful

Context example:

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!

Similar:

unappreciative (not feeling or expressing gratitude)

Antonym:

grateful (feeling or showing gratitude)

Derivation:

ungratefulness (a lack of gratitude)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Disagreeable

Context example:

I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure

Similar:

unpleasant (offensive or disagreeable; causing discomfort or unhappiness)

 Context examples 

“Heaven defend me from being ungrateful!”

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained through one of them,” I answered.

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

I shall know better in time; and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Now, all the time I had been on my visit, I had been ungrateful to my home again, and had thought little or nothing about it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But how can one serve people who are so foolish and so ungrateful?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was so wicked, so untrue and ungrateful, how could I say it!

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did the lives of the poor, and that if ever in the world there was charity, this was it.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But she could not be long ungrateful; he was sacrificing an engagement at a gunsmith's, to be of use to her; and she set off with him, with no feeling but gratitude apparent.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He was neither so unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew;—but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)