distasteful
Americanadjective
-
unpleasant, offensive, or causing dislike.
a distasteful chore.
- Synonyms:
- repulsive, repugnant, disagreeable
-
unpleasant to the taste.
a distasteful medicine.
- Synonyms:
- unsavory, unpalatable
-
showing distaste or dislike.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of distasteful
Explanation
Things that you find disagreeable or unpleasant are distasteful. A distasteful movie might disturb you so much that you leave the theater before it's over. While certain kinds of food might be distasteful to you — overcooked vegetables, for example — you can find non-edible things just as distasteful, despite the taste within the word. This adjective uses the sense of taste that means "preference" or "tendency to like something," along with the prefix dis-, "not" or "the opposite of." You can, for example, find things like greed and cruelty to be just as distasteful as overcooked broccoli.
Vocabulary lists containing distasteful
Power Suffix: -ful
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Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 6
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The Bad Beginning
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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 may be distasteful to some people and not to others. But it absolutely can't be criminal."
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
It was as distasteful a segment as you’d expect from “Update,” yet also somehow straddled the line between wallowing in the scandal and mining some genuine laughs out of it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2026
The Alexanders’ lawyers argued that while the brothers’ behavior could be distasteful and crude, it didn’t amount to a federal crime.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
This question, often raised in a more distasteful context, also applied to Netflix in its then-pending acquisition of the Warner Bros.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026
To Rain, financial matters were a distasteful but necessary private function, like going to the bathroom.
From "Schooled" by Gordon Korman
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
