distasteful

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Alternative forms

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From distaste +‎ -ful or dis- +‎ tasteful.

Pronunciation

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

distasteful (comparative more distasteful, superlative most distasteful)

  1. Having a bad or foul taste.
    Near-synonym: unpalatable
    The food had very distasteful flavour.
  2. (figuratively) Unpleasant.
    Near-synonym: unpalatable
    Scrubbing the floors was a distasteful duty to perform.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 198–199:
      All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. [] Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connection—or rather as a transition from the subject that had started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.
  3. Offensive.
    distasteful language
    • 1987 December 27, Kenneth J. Trask, “Stop Crossing Your Legs, Governor”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 24, page 5:
      AIDS is primarily a sexually transmitted disease and to not focus on the documented routes of transmission — however distasteful they may be to some legislators — is an ineffective and bigoted means of education by any standards.

Antonyms

[edit]
[edit]

Translations

[edit]

See also

[edit]