unmanly
Americanadjective
-
not manly; not characteristic of or befitting a man; weak, timid, or cowardly.
adjective
-
not masculine or virile
-
ignoble, cowardly, or dishonourable
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unmanly
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at un- 1, manly
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.
Young Alison and her dandyish father were inversions of each other: “While I was trying to compensate for something unmanly in him,” she writes, “he was attempting to express something feminine through me.”
From Slate ● Nov. 18, 2019
While soccer is the global game, the CPL is describing their brand as “distinctly Canadian”, an attacking hard-nosed style where the feigning of phantom injuries is seen as unmanly.
From Reuters ● Oct. 31, 2019
He worried that if Vietnam fell to communism, then he would get labeled “a coward. An unmanly man. A man without a spine.”
From Salon ● Nov. 2, 2018
Mocked with such unmanly epithets as “weakling” and “Oscar Wilde”, Roosevelt tried to overcome, Gore Vidal once pointed out, “his physical fragility through ‘manly’ activities of which the most exciting and ennobling was war”.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 17, 2018
And it seemed to me that there was something unmanly about my attachment to literature.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
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