ill-kempt
Americanadjective
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.
“I would much rather have somebody who’s older than some of the other places I visited,” she says, describing ill-kempt shares with college students who seemed to party and fight constantly.
From New York Times ● Jun. 1, 2022
Its Soviet-era apartment blocks are flaking and ill-kempt; the newer towers come styled in generic “urban shab”, with flimsy sliding windows and mean balconies, their hulls crusted with air-conditioners and satellite dishes.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 7, 2017
But Canadian-born Raymond Massey's ill-kempt, loose-lipped, moody Lincoln is as good on the screen as on the stage, and the picture's best excuse for being.
From Time Magazine Archive
At one end, an ill-kempt mob is armed mainly with monkey wrenches and backyard barbecue forks.
From Time Magazine Archive
But Chauvelin was not a man to be denied, and whilst muttering various objections in his ill-kempt beard, Cuisinier, nevertheless, gave orders that the citizen was to be conducted at once to the cells.
From The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
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.
