nondescript
Americanadjective
-
of no recognized, definite, or particular type or kind.
a nondescript novel; a nondescript color.
- Synonyms:
- unexceptional, ordinary, usual
-
undistinguished or uninteresting; dull or insipid.
The private detective deliberately wore nondescript clothes.
noun
adjective
noun
Etymology
Origin of nondescript
1675–85; non- + Latin dēscrīptus (past participle of dēscrībere to describe, define, represent; describe )
Explanation
Nondescript is a word used to describe something that isn't special or unusual in any way. You might have trouble finding a nondescript apartment building because it looks exactly like every other apartment building around it. You could use the word nondescript to describe your blind date if she was completely uninteresting and dull, both in looks and personality. Some houses are so nondescript that you have to drive by several times just to make sure it's the right one.
Vocabulary lists containing nondescript
The Giver
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The Handmaid's Tale
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A Separate Peace
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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.
But when the film takes the perspective of a human looking at the forest dwellers, their eyes appear small and dark, almost nondescript.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 6, 2026
We visited a few of them, hidden away in basements of wrecked buildings or nondescript village houses.
From BBC • Feb. 24, 2026
Far from the glamour of fashion weeks in Paris, Milan and London, a nondescript cashmere mill on Scotland's western coast that supplies luxury labels hopes local training programmes can attract new talent.
From Barron's • Feb. 20, 2026
There was little to suggest what Artem Tymofeyev and his wife, Kateryna Tymofeyeva, were really up to in a nondescript warehouse in the industrial Russian city of Chelyabinsk this spring.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 10, 2025
The elevator arrived; several police-like nondescript men and women disemelevatored, clacked off across the lobby on their several errands.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
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.
