unpromising
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- unpromisingly adverb
Etymology
Origin of unpromising
Explanation
If something is unpromising, it doesn't show signs that it's going to be successful, beneficial, or fun. An unpromising school dance has bad music and boring snacks. An unpromising TV series seems dull from the first episode, and an unpromising job interview is awkward and uncomfortable. Just because something's unpromising doesn't mean it won't work out well in the end, only that it seems unlikely. After an unpromising start as the sickly runt of the litter, your dog may end up growing into a 100-pound goofball who lives a long, happy life.
Vocabulary lists containing unpromising
The City of Ember
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"Two Left Feet, Two Left Hands, and Too Left on the Bench"
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Unfavorable
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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.
Beauty lives in the most unexpected places, grows from the most unpromising soils.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 17, 2026
It was an unpromising start, and things only got worse from there.
From BBC • Nov. 2, 2024
From this unpromising site have risen stacks of factory-built steel modules punctuated by little green spaces.
From New York Times • May 5, 2023
But such unpromising places often harbored among the rarest plants and beetles, von der Lippe says.
From Science Magazine • Nov. 2, 2022
In creating modern maize from this unpromising plant, Indians performed a feat so improbable that archaeologists and biologists argued for decades over how it was achieved.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
