gauche
/ɡəʊʃ
/adjective
Unsophisticated and socially awkward: a shy and gauche teenager...
- Wandering downstairs, I saw a gauche teenager sat on the bench seat near the exit - just him and a camera case on a seat for three.
- The former claimed he had stolen their patter, the latter that his vulgar, earthy humour was the contradictory métier of a gauche social climber.
- There were awkward speeches saying kind and clumsy things, gauche jokes and real fondness.
Synonyms
awkward, gawky, inelegant, graceless, ungraceful, ungainly, bumbling, maladroit, inept;
socially awkward, socially inept, lacking in social grace(s), unpolished, unsophisticated, uncultured, uncultivated, unrefined, raw, inexperienced, uneducated, unworldly
Derivatives
gauchely
- As for him, he is in fine form, gauchely approaching me with hand outstretched, his enormous blue eyes, rosy cheeks and slight, boyish frame belying the fact that he turned 32 in July.
- He combined his Gothic physical persona with a set of gauchely theatrical mannerisms, a non-stop performance of poetical sensitivity.
- It seems almost gauchely obvious to complain.
gaucheness
/ noun ...- Adam is clearly a failed superhero: he has all the weirdo-kid and gaucheness of the generic superhero before the ‘change’ (think Clark Kent), but somehow is stuck in a pre-change world.
- The gaucheness of her effusive praise for an embarrassed Duncan proves where the power in her relationship lies - and it is not with her.
- Surrounded by the gaucheness of punk, and possessing cheekbones you could hang coats on, the age factor added to her alluring image of mature sexuality.
Origin
Mid 18th century: French, literally 'left'.
Rhymes
- higher learning
- higher-level
- higher mathematics
- highermost
- higher-order
- higher plants
- higher-ranking
- Higher School Certificate
- Higher Thought
- higher-up
- highest common factor
- highest good
- highest-ranking
- high explosive
- highfalutin
- highfalutination
- highfaluting
- high farming
- high fashion
- high-fat
- high-fed
- high-fiber
- high-fibre
- high fidelity
- high finance