un-English
Americanadjective
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not English; not characteristic of the English.
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not conforming to standard, accepted, or native English language usage.
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.
"Let's do something that is typically un-English and support our team rather than giving them a kicking before the series has even started."
From BBC • Nov. 12, 2025
Those of us laboring in academia are not surprised that such un-English phrases show up in a book, even one printed by the prominent publisher W. W. Norton & Company.
From New York Times • Mar. 11, 2022
This sort of weapon, she says, is “unsportsmanlike, it is un-English, and it is in very poor taste.”
From Washington Post • Jun. 20, 2017
Gardner, on record as saying he believes the work to be "unshackled and dangerous and very un-English", tore into it with breathtaking lyrical ferocity.
From The Guardian • Aug. 26, 2012
They wore un-English leggings and curious girt-in belts that reminded him hazily of the pictures in a book at St. Xavier's library: 'The Adventures of a Young Naturalist in Mexico' was its name.
From Kim by Kipling, Rudyard
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.
