unkind
Americanadjective
adjective
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lacking kindness; unsympathetic or cruel
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archaic
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(of weather) unpleasant
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(of soil) hard to cultivate
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Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unkind
Middle English word dating back to 1200–50; see origin at un- 1, kind 1
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.
See Examples For:
"They've said some very unkind things about Britain, and also about the monarchy."
From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026
"One of the many things I regret is that I hurt so many people by giving them nasty nicknames, and above all that I was unkind to the children of celebrities."
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
Some of the online judgment may seem unkind, but in today’s market, the criticism may be valid.
From MarketWatch ● May 13, 2026
Ellie married Dillahan because “it would have been unkind on her part if she’d said no.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 9, 2026
Her face was neither kind nor unkind; if a face could look like distilled knowledge, it would be this.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
It’s not at all a serious remark, yet it’s a reflection of Stewart’s regular-guy populism — or, to be unkinder, provincialism.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 30, 2021
“The cuts seem unkinder now than they’ve ever been,” said Jeff Shesol, a Democratic speechwriter.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2014
Some months later, the women of Walsenburg dealt Mosco an even unkinder cut: they asked him to serve without any salary at all, and. then, when he refused, fired him outright.
From Time Magazine Archive
The new low, low hemline has been officially named the Midi, but many fashionplates have unkinder words for it.
From Time Magazine Archive
No one said unkinder things to my face than he did, and yet behind my back I knew that many a time he had made things smoother for me with his parents.
From Dwell Deep or Hilda Thorn's Life Story by Amy Le Feuvre
For the American people to turn their back on them would be the unkindest cut of all.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026
Like other prestige dramas' unkindest deaths, it may serve a higher purpose.
From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2025
Too old to seize a moment, too active to be rediscovered, he’s been subject over the past two decades to some of the unkindest reviews ever delivered to a talent of his magnitude.
From New York Times ● May 24, 2021
Maybe the unkindest cut came after the relocation vote at the Board of Governors meeting in Dallas.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 2, 2020
‘This is the most unkindest cut of all!’
From Frank Merriwell's New Comedian The Rise of a Star by Burt L. Standish
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.
