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When you are adept at something, you are very good, skillful, or talented at it.
Someone who is adroit is skillful and clever especially in thought, behavior, or action.
When a person is ambidextrous, she can use either her left or right hand with equal skill.
A bravura performance is one that is done with great skill, especially when it is very difficult.
The choreography of a work of dance is either the art of arranging the steps or the actual dance composition.
If someone shows consummate skill at doing something, that person’s skill is very great or almost perfect in every way.
That which is cumbersome is burdensome or troublesome in some way because of its great bulk or heaviness, causing one to be clumsy or awkward.
A man who is debonair wears fashionable clothes and is sophisticated, charming, friendly, and confident.
A deft movement or action is made quickly and with skill.
Efficacy is the ability or power to produce an expected effect or result.
Anything or anyone errant behaves in a way that is unacceptable or wrong; for example, an errant missile travels in the wrong direction, while an errant husband is unfaithful to his wife.
If someone is described as feckless it means that he is incompetent and lacks the determination or skill to achieve anything in life.
If you show finesse in something you do it with great skill and care, especially handling difficult situations which might easily offend people.
Flair can either refer to a natural talent that you possess, or the ability you have at personal style.
A gauche person behaves in an awkward and unsuitable way in a social situation because he or she lacks social skills.
To handle an object gingerly is to be careful and cautious with it.
A hapless person is someone you feel sorry for; she is so unlucky that many bad things have happened and continue to happen to her.
Someone who is inept is unable or unsuitable to do a job and hence is unfit for it.
When you jostle another person you bump against or push him, usually because you are in a crowd of many people.
If you describe someone as lissome you mean that she is thin and moves gracefully.
If you do something with panache, you do it in a way that shows great skill, style, and confidence.
When you do something with pizzazz you do it with style, flair, and energy.
Ponderous writing or speech is boring, highly serious, and seems very long and wordy; it definitely lacks both grace and style.
When you have been remiss, it means that you have been careless because you did not do something that you should have done.
To act in an uncouth manner is to be awkward and unmannerly.
If you say something is unfeasible you think that it cannot be made or achieved.
An unkempt person or thing is untidy and has not been kept neat.
If you say someone’s behavior is unseemly you disapprove of it because it is not in good taste or not suitable for a particular situation.
Something that is unwieldy is hard or awkward to handle because of the way that it is shaped.
A virtuoso is someone who is very skillful at something, especially playing a musical instrument.
If you refer to someone as a yokel you think that he is not very intelligent and does not know much about modern life or ideas because he stays put in the countryside.
Adj.
ungainly
uhn-GAYN-lee
Context
Klaus Utz the ungainly mover always made a mess of things because he was so clumsy. Klaus would walk in an ungainly and uncoordinated fashion through doorways, often crashing into door frames. When Klaus tried to move ungainly, hard-to-handle sofas, it was nearly impossible for him to complete the task without breaking something. The awkward, ungainly Klaus Utz dented walls throughout every house he entered—no wonder he at last lost his job.
Ungainly RunOnlyGains Last Place The runner named Brunner was so ungainly in his clumsy, klutzy running that he onlygained last place in the race, but he did win an award for best effort.
Examples
No one who has seen Nicholls’s ungainly skating style is surprised to learn that he was born with an inward-facing left foot that required him to wear a brace as a toddler.
—Sports Illustrated
The Maoists have refused overtures to sit down to talks with the government, an ungainly coalition of 22 parties patched together to replace the Maoist-dominated administration.
—TIME
Even scientists, examining drawings of what the ungainly animal may have looked like, wondered how it had been able to move about without falling flat on its face.
—The New York Times
What unites this trio is a creature more unlikely than the three of them put together: Seabiscuit, a runty little racer with an ungainly gallop and a distinct flair for losing.
—The Christian Science Monitor
The word gainly once meant proper, serviceable; ungainly acts are therefore not proper or serviceable in their execution.
origin: Old Norse
Knowing language of origin or etymology is not important; but is sometimes interesting enough to make the word memorable. Only such words have associated maps.
Word Theater
Wobbling About These ungainly animals stumble through life.
The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!
