graceless
English
Etymology
From Middle English graceles; equivalent to grace + -less.
Pronunciation
Adjective
graceless (comparative more graceless, superlative most graceless)
- Without grace.
- c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 229, column 1:
- Such dutie as the ſubject owes the Prince, / Euen ſuch a woman oweth to her husband: / And when ſhe is froward, peeuiſh, ſullen, ſowre, / And not obedient to his honeſt will, / What is ſhe but a foule contending Rebell / And graceleſſe Traitor to her louing Lord?
- 1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], epistle III, Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, for George Risk, […], George Ewing, […], and William Smith, […], →OCLC, page 19, lines 306–307:
- For Modes of Faith let graceleſs Zealots fight; / His can't be wrong whoſe Life is in the right.
- 1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Sonnet XXXII, "Equal Troth," in The House of Life, [1]:
- Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love; / For how should I be loved as I love thee? — / I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely / All gifts that with thy queenship best behove; — [...]
- 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter III, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 46:
- There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden; old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably and keeping in the corners— [...]
- 1972, Roland Barthes, "Toys" in Mythologies (1957), translated by Annette Lavers, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, p. 54,
- Current toys are made of a graceless material, the product of chemistry, not of nature.
- 1995, Susan Sontag, "The Art of Fiction No. 143," Interview with Edward Hirsch published in The Paris Review, No. 137, Winter, 1995, p. 7,
- [Hirsch:] Do you mind being called an intellectual? [Sontag:] Well, one never likes to be called anything. [...] I suppose there will always be a presumption of graceless oddity—especially if one is a woman.
- Lacking gracefulness
- 1961, Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy, New York: Signet, p. 64,
- The boy sketched his roughhewn young contadino just in from the fields, naked except for his brache, kneeling to take off his clodhoppers; the flesh tones a sunburned amber, the figure clumsy, with graceless bumpkin muscles; but the face transfused with light as the young lad gazed up at John.
- 1961, Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy, New York: Signet, p. 64,
- (archaic) Unfortunate.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 8, page 39:
- Much was he grieued with that graceleſſe chaunce, / Yet from the wound no drop of bloud there fell, / But wondrous paine, that did the more enhaunce / His haughtie courage to aduengement fell: / Smart daunts not mighty harts, but makes them more to ſwell.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Derived terms
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms suffixed with -less
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with archaic senses