HOMELY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Homely

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/hˈoʊmli/ Listen

adjective

Homely adj. (compar. homelier; superl. homeliest)

Belonging to, or having the characteristics of, home; domestic; familiar; intimate. (Archaic) "With all these men I was right homely, and communed with, them long and oft." "Their homely joys, and destiny obscure."

Plain; unpretending; rude in appearance; unpolished; as, a homely garment; a homely house; homely fare; homely manners. "Now Strephon daily entertains His Chloe in the homeliest strains."

Of plain or coarse features; uncomely; ugly; usually used of people, especially women; contrary to handsome. "None so homely but loves a looking-glass."

adverb

Homely adv. Plainly; rudely; coarsely; as, homely dressed. (R.)

See images of 'Homely'

Etymology of 'Homely'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Homely" Quotes from Famous Books

... at the homely affectionate face of the little speaker. 'You are her good friend, I am sure,' ...

— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... and handed over the lead-rope with a bit of homely advice. "You no lak' you git find, dat better you don' talk mooch. You ain' got to sing no mor', neider, or ba Goss! A'm tak' you down an' stick you mout' full of rags, lak' I done down to Chinook dat tam'. Dat hooch she mak' noise 'nough ...

— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... only these representations of Satyrs who carried canisters and cornucopias full of several fruits in their hands, and danced with them at their public feasts, and afterwards reading Horace, who makes mention of his homely Romans jesting at one another in the same kind of solemnities, might suppose those wanton Satyrs did the same; and especially because Horace possibly might seem to him to have shown the original of all poetry in general (including the Grecians as well as Romans), though it is plainly ...

— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... —a doggerel in homely Spanish metre, unwritten mouth-to-mouth wisdom, stable as a proverb, enduring through generations of unrecorded wanderers, that repeated it for a few years, and ...

— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... slope of a hill, and all the width of ocean lies below the rustic windows. The roses and fuchsias of the cottage gardens seem all the brighter by contrast with that broad expanse of blue. The fresh breath of the salt sea blends with the perfume of new-mown hay and all the homely odours of the farmyard. The lark sings high in the blue vault of heaven above the church, and over the blue of the sea the gull skims white in the sunshine. The fisherman and the farm labourer have their cottages side by side, nestling cosily to leeward ...

— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

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