ill-fitting
Americanadjective
-
(of a garment) not fitting well.
-
not appropriate or suitable.
Etymology
Origin of ill-fitting
First recorded in 1865–70; ill ( def. ) + fitting ( def. )
Explanation
Clothes that are ill-fitting are too big or too small — or maybe too big in some places, and too small in others. Your ill-fitting pants may require a belt to keep them from falling down. An ill-fitting dress might be too short and too tight in the arms, and an ill-fitting suit might be big enough to fit two of you. When something fits, it's the proper size and shape for your body, and when it doesn't fit, it's ill-fitting. This adjective combines ill-, "badly" or "not well," with fitting, from the verb fit, "be fitting or proper" and "be the right shape."
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.
It's also about the players he has confused and bewildered with his ill-fitting shape and the ideology he refuses to alter no matter how befuddled things become.
From BBC • Jan. 3, 2026
There were men in leather jackets, women in bedazzled red hats, young guys in ill-fitting suits.
From Slate • Dec. 8, 2025
They were a comically ill-fitting duo, but they nonetheless became inseparable.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 5, 2025
In others, he’s an imp hiding within an ill-fitting costume of normalcy.
From Salon • Oct. 13, 2025
At twenty-one, long before ill-fitting dentures and self-imposed invalidism, my grandmother was something of a beauty.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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.
