unsophisticated
Americanadjective
-
not sophisticated; simple; artless.
- Synonyms:
- inexperienced, naive, ingenuous
-
without complexity or refinements.
a relatively unsophisticated mechanism.
-
unadulterated; pure; genuine.
adjective
-
lacking experience or worldly wisdom
-
marked by a lack of refinement or complexity
an unsophisticated machine
-
unadulterated or genuine
Other Word Forms
- unsophisticatedly adverb
- unsophisticatedness noun
- unsophistication noun
Etymology
Origin of unsophisticated
First recorded in 1620–30; un- 1 + sophisticated
Vocabulary lists containing unsophisticated
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Everything fell: oil prices, the dollar, even gold, because investors were shocked by how unsophisticated and draconian the policy was.
From Salon • Apr. 5, 2026
I didn’t realize it at the time, but there was also insecurity there: An American embarrassed by a rough, unsophisticated America, envious of Europe’s aristocratic polish.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 5, 2026
When Mark Delgado made his MLS debut, he was just 17 and even he acknowledges his approach to soccer was unsophisticated.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 6, 2024
For a long time, scientists considered Neanderthals brutish and unsophisticated by comparison with our species.
From BBC • May 1, 2024
By the standards of today, crater research in the early 1900s was a trifle unsophisticated, to say the least.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
