Clumsy
adjectiveAwkward in movement or handling, and so likely to knock into things or drop them.
How to spell clumsy
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce clumsy
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does clumsy mean?
- adjectiveAwkward in movement or handling, and so likely to knock into things or drop them.
Clumsy in a sentence
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His clumsy grip sent the coffee mug crashing to the floor.
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A clumsy attempt to apologise only made the situation worse.
Where does clumsy come from?
Language of origin: Old Norse
Clumsy traces back to a now-obsolete verb 'clumse', meaning to be numb or stiff with cold, which English picked up from a Scandinavian source related to Old Norse forms like 'klumsa', describing fingers or limbs that had gone stiff and unresponsive. A person whose hands were numbed by frost moved awkwardly and dropped things, so the sense slid naturally from 'benumbed' to 'awkward and ungainly'. The adjective 'clumsy' is recorded from around the 1590s, formed by adding the ordinary '-y' ending to that older root. The link to cold-stiffened hands is a useful memory hook: the word begins with the same 'clums-' lump of letters, and the trap for writers is simply remembering it ends in a single '-sy' with that buried 'z' sound spelled 's'. Its Norse-derived cousins survive only in dialect, leaving 'clumsy' as the lone everyday descendant of the family.
How the word is built
- clums- (from earlier clumse: numb or stiff with cold)
- -y (adjective suffix)
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