Ungrateful

How to spell ungrateful

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce ungrateful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ungrateful mean?

1. adjectiveNot showing or feeling thanks for kindness, help, or things received.

Ungrateful in a sentence

• It would be ungrateful to ignore all the help her neighbours gave during the move.

• He felt ungrateful for complaining about a present his aunt had chosen so carefully.

Where does ungrateful come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the now obsolete English adjective 'grate', meaning 'pleasing' or 'agreeable', which came from the Latin gratus, literally 'thankful, welcome, pleasing'. In the sixteenth century English speakers added the suffix -ful to make 'grateful', meaning full of thanks or appreciation, and then attached the negative prefix un- to express the opposite: lacking thanks. The same Latin gratus lies behind a surprising family of everyday words, including 'gratitude', 'gratis' (free of charge), 'gratuity', and even 'congratulate'. A useful spelling reminder is that the ending is -ful with a single l, not -full, because the suffix -ful always drops one l when it joins a word. Knowing that 'grateful' hides the older word 'grate' also explains why there is no extra letter between the t and the f.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• grate (pleasing, from Latin gratus 'thankful, pleasing')
• -ful (full of)