unprepossessing
Britishadjective
Explanation
If you find someone to be unprepossessing, you find them unattractive. Not that they're ugly, mind you! Just unprepossessing. Unprepossessing is a rather indirect way of calling someone unattractive, or at best OK-looking. Unprepossessing is not quite the same as "ugly." Rather, just a way of saying that someone's looks aren't what you're most likely to remember about them. Cinderella was most unprepossessing in the filthy clothes and worn-out shoes that her step-sisters forced her to wear. But when she was all decked out by her fairy godmother, she was the belle of the ball: she was no longer unprepossessing.
Vocabulary lists containing unprepossessing
100 SAT Words Beginning with "U"
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Murder on the Orient Express
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The Count of Monte Cristo
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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.
The many large exhibition halls on what is, frankly, a pretty unprepossessing site - it's a bit like holding a grand prix at the NEC in Birmingham - clearly don't make this the easiest task.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
Pepys thought of himself as a ladykiller, but one doubts many women found him attractive—Pepys was an unprepossessing 5 feet 1 inch tall.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
Yet he remained unprepossessing throughout his life, preferring tattered shirts and khakis to tailored suits.
From New York Times ● Mar. 24, 2023
The show, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sounds unprepossessing.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 3, 2023
Just sixty-five million years ago our ancestors were the most unprepossessing of mammals—creatures with the size and intelligence of moles or tree shrews.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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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.
