ungrateful
Americanadjective
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unappreciative; not displaying gratitude; not giving due return or recompense for benefits conferred.
ungrateful heirs.
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unpleasant; distasteful; repellent.
an ungrateful task.
adjective
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not grateful or thankful
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unrewarding or unpleasant; thankless
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(of land) failing to increase fertility in response to cultivation
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ungrateful
Explanation
Someone who's ungrateful isn't thankful or appreciative. Your grandmother might think you're ungrateful if you don't send her a handwritten thank you note for the birthday gift she gave you. You are ungrateful if you're unhappy with your neighbor's contribution to your yard sale — a big old television that doesn't work. Your neighbor, in turn, is ungrateful if he accepts the chocolate chip cookies you baked without even saying, "Thanks." The prefix un here means "not," and grateful comes from a now obsolete adjective, grate, "agreeable or thankful," from the Latin root gratus, "pleasing."
Vocabulary lists containing ungrateful
"Tribute to the Dog," Vocabulary from the speech
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Milkweed
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We Were Liars
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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.
He said his mother sued him this year in a land ownership dispute under Thailand's "ungrateful child" law, which allows parents to reclaim assets previously given to children deemed unappreciative through their behaviour.
From Barron's • May 25, 2026
She unlocks the door, saying she's "feeling really ungrateful now" and reiterating that "this is just where they are at the moment".
From BBC • May 22, 2026
Related: My rude, ungrateful relative gave her lawyer power of attorney — and has lived to regret it.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 6, 2026
“It might seem ungrateful that I don’t care about the health stuff, but I just don’t think it lasts the way something really delicious would.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 10, 2026
A man sang that he would never forgive the ungrateful woman he once loved because she had abandoned him at what was supposed to be the happiest time of year.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
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.
