clumsy
Americanadjective
-
awkward in movement or action; without skill or grace.
He is very clumsy and is always breaking things.
- Synonyms:
- lubberly, lumbering, ungainly, ungraceful
-
awkwardly done or made; unwieldy; ill-contrived.
He made a clumsy, embarrassed apology.
- Synonyms:
- inept, heavy-handed, bumbling, inexpert, maladroit, unskillful, unhandy
adjective
-
lacking in skill or physical coordination
-
awkwardly constructed or contrived
Other Word Forms
- clumsily adverb
- clumsiness noun
Etymology
Origin of clumsy
1590–1600; clums benumbed with cold (now obsolete) + -y 1; akin to Middle English clumsen to be stiff with cold, dialectal Swedish klumsig benumbed, awkward, klums numbskull, Old Norse klumsa lockjaw. See clam 2
Explanation
Someone clumsy is a klutz. They're awkward, ungraceful, and walk like they have two left feet. Something hard to handle — like a huge box — is also clumsy. A badly told story is told in a clumsy way, and a couch that's hard to move clumsy to carry. But mostly being clumsy is embarrassing. Dropping things, tripping a lot, and stumbling are all examples of clumsiness. Clumsy people usually aren't too good at sports or dancing. And you certainly don't want a clumsy surgeon. Most people are a little clumsy when they're teenagers — growing so fast makes it hard to be sure of yourself physically.
Vocabulary lists containing clumsy
Awkward Moments
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"Dulce et Decorum Est," by Wilfred Owen
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List 5
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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 production is a revival of the disappointingly fussy, clumsy, old-fashioned one by Lee Blakeley the company unveiled in 2013 for Conlon and to celebrate the Verdi bicentennial.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 29, 2026
Where Fausset’s story was clumsy enough to draw immediate institutional embarrassment, Bernstein’s is polished enough to escape the same reckoning.
From Salon • Apr. 6, 2026
The teenage Felix is hopelessly clumsy around women.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 26, 2026
The Bath wing copped a first unfortunate yellow card for not releasing the tackled man and then a clumsy second, blundering into an airborne Kyle Steyn.
From BBC • Feb. 14, 2026
He sat on the porch swing, thinking about himself as a child—a skinny, clumsy boy running through the hills and climbing trees.
From "Ruby Holler" by Sharon Creech
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.
