Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Resembling or characteristic of a boor; rude and clumsy in behavior.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Resembling a boor; clownish; rustic; awkward in manners; illiterate.
  • Pertaining to or fit for a boor.
  • Synonyms Boorish, Churlish, Clownish, Loutish. He who is boorish is so low-bred in habits and ways as to be positively offensive. He who is churlish offends by his language and manners, they being such as would naturally be found in one who is coarse and selfish, and therefore generally insolent or crusty and rough; the opposite of kind and courteous: as, it is churlish to refuse to answer a civil question. The opposite of boorish is refined or polite; the opposite of clownish is elegant. Clownish is a somewhat weaker word than boorish, implying less that is disgusting in manner and speech; it often notes mere lack of refinement. The difference between clownish and loutish is that he who is clownish is generally stupid and sometimes ludicrous, while he who is loutish is perhaps slovenly and worthy of blame.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Like a boor; clownish; uncultured; unmannerly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Behaving as a boor; rough in manners; rude; uncultured.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective ill-mannered and coarse and contemptible in behavior or appearance

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

boor ("peasant") + -ish.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "'In my obituary,' he said to the two silent backs, 'they will write that he contributed two hundred million in taxes for the common good, and that he gave Denmark more free international publicity than Niels Bohr and a million pallets of bacon ever did. Nonetheless, the men who accompanied him - when he was taken away to torture and execution - were as boorish as hip-hop gangsters. And as unshaven as Indian swamis.'"

    - 'The Quiet Girl', Peter Høeg.

    March 19, 2008