uncouth
un·couth
adjective
lacking refinement or cultivation or taste
- “he had coarse manners but a first-rate mind”
- “behavior that branded him as common”
- “an untutored and uncouth human being”
- “an uncouth soldier--a real tough guy”
- “appealing to the vulgar taste for violence”
- “the vulgar display of the newly rich”
Origin
From Middle English uncouth, from Old English uncūþ (“unknown; unfamiliar; strange”), from Proto-West Germanic *unkunþ, from Proto-Germanic *unkunþaz (“unknown”), equivalent to un- + couth. The modern pronunciation does not show /aʊ/, the usual development of the Middle English vowel from the Great Vowel Shift. It is usually explained as a pronunciation taken from Northern English dialects, which did not undergo the diphthongization of the vowel.
Related words
Word family
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.