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Wiktionary

distasteful

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From distaste +‎ -ful or dis- +‎ tasteful.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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distasteful (comparative more distasteful, superlative most distasteful)

  1. Having a bad or foul taste.
    Near-synonym: unpalatable
    The food had very distasteful flavour.
  2. (figuratively) Unpleasant.
    Near-synonym: unpalatable
    Scrubbing the floors was a distasteful duty to perform.
    • 1642, Thomas Fuller, “The Good Herald”, in The Holy State, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams, […], →OCLC, book II, paragraph 2, page 142:
      He imbitters not a diſtaſtfull meſſage to a forrein Prince by his indiſcretion in delivering it.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 198–199:
      All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. […] Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connection—or rather as a transition from the subject that had started their conversation—such talk had been distressingly out of place.
  3. Offensive.
    distasteful language
    • 1987 December 27, Kenneth J. Trask, “Stop Crossing Your Legs, Governor”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 24, page 5:
      AIDS is primarily a sexually transmitted disease and to not focus on the documented routes of transmission — however distasteful they may be to some legislators — is an ineffective and bigoted means of education by any standards.

Antonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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