unskilled

[ uhn-skild ]

adjective

1. of or relating to workers who lack technical training or skill.
2. not demanding special training or skill:

   unskilled occupations.

3. exhibiting a marked lack of skill or competence:

   an unskilled painting; an unskilled writer.

4. not skilled skill skilled or expert:

   He was unskilled in the art of rhetoric.

unskilled

/ ʌnˈskɪld /

adjective

1. not having or requiring any special skill or training

   an unskilled job

   unskilled workers

2. having or displaying no skill; inexpert

   he is quite unskilled at dancing

Word History and Origins

Origin of unskilled¹

First recorded in 1575–85; un- ¹ + skilled

Example Sentences

As a small boy working alongside his parents, doing labor that was often described, incorrectly, as “unskilled,” I felt ashamed of who I was.

From Outside Online

Much infrastructure is very different than our images of New Deal projects, where you have thousands of unskilled men working with picks by the side of the road.

From Freakonomics

America's labor shortage crisis has been exacerbated by immigration restrictions that have reduced the number of both skilled and unskilled workers.

From Axios

In a flashback to a season three episode, for example, Kim, a notoriously unskilled and reluctant dancer, performs with the Pussycat Dolls in Vegas.

From The Daily Beast

Those who weren’t as networked — the homeless, the elderly, single mothers, and unskilled immigrants — slipped increasingly out of sight.

From Freakonomics

But the urban workforce is not often a friendly place for young, unskilled and under-trained Chinese women.

From The Daily Beast

The only good explanation for Katya was to claim that her now former lawyers were unskilled.

From The Daily Beast

The US economy has changed in ways that make it more difficult for the unskilled to rise.

From The Daily Beast

But he had shown at the nationals in Salt Lake City the previous year that he was only good, not great, tough but unskilled.

From The Daily Beast

So while college graduates are having trouble getting college-style jobs, the unskilled workers are doing even worse.

From The Daily Beast

Private employers complain of scarcity and the unreliability of the unskilled labourer.

From Project Gutenberg

To others it means three dollars a day for unskilled labor, fire, clothes, and something to eat.

From Project Gutenberg

One took his fancy, he had been fond of music and not unskilled; this was a piece of Scarlatti, showy, foreign.

From Project Gutenberg

For unskilled feet to approach those levels is almost certain death.

From Project Gutenberg

The seekers of homesteads include men of better stuff than the job-seekers attracted by high wages for unskilled labor.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• incompetent
• inexperienced
• uneducated
• unqualified
• unschooled