Uncouth
What It Means
Uncouth describes things, such as language or behavior, that are impolite or socially unacceptable. A person may also be described as uncouth if they are behaving in a rude way.
// Stacy realized it would be uncouth to show up to the party without a gift, so she picked up a bottle of wine on the way.
uncouth in Context
“Perhaps people deride those who buy books solely for how they look because it reminds them that despite their primary love of literature, they still appreciate a beautiful cover. It’s not of primary importance but liking how something looks in your home matters to some extent, even if it feels uncouth to acknowledge.” — Chiara Dello Joio, LitHub.com, 24 Jan. 2023.
Did You Know?
Old English speakers used the word cūth to describe things that were familiar to them, and uncūth for the strange and mysterious. These words passed through Middle English into modern English with different spellings but the same meanings. While couth eventually dropped out of use, uncouth soldiered on. In Captain Singleton by English novelist Daniel Defoe, for example, the author refers to “a strange noise more uncouth than any they had ever heard,” while Shakespeare wrote of an “uncouth forest” in As You Like It. This “unfamiliar” sense of uncouth, however, joined couth in becoming, well, unfamiliar to most English users, giving way to the now-common meanings, “rude” and “lacking polish or grace.” The adjective couth in use today, meaning “sophisticated” or “polished,” arose at the turn of the 20th century, not from the earlier couth, but as a back-formation of uncouth, joining the ranks of other “uncommon opposites” such as kempt and gruntled.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
