noun
definition
Someone or something that is awkward.
adjective
definition
Lacking dexterity in the use of the hands, or of instruments.
example
John was awkward at performing the trick. He'll have to practice to improve.
synonyms
definition
Not easily managed or effected; embarrassing.
example
An awkward silence had fallen.
definition
Lacking social skills, or uncomfortable with social interaction.
example
I'm very awkward at parties.
synonyms
definition
Perverse; adverse; difficult to handle.
example
He's a right awkward chap.
adverb
definition
In a backwards direction.
Examples of awkward in a Sentence
You just put me in an awkward position.
After an awkward silence, she glanced up at him with a mischievous smile.
This is getting awkward, isn't it?
The ride back was quiet, but the silence was a comfortable one, only becoming awkward when they reached the door of his house.
They sat, not speaking, but it wasn't awkward any longer.
The awkward quiet fell again.
He finally broke the awkward silence.
After an awkward good-by, she watched the tail lights of his car disappear down the drive.
She stretched again before settling into an awkward stance across from him.
She is not conscious of any reason why she should be awkward; consequently, her movements are free and graceful.
Jessi watched the awkward exchange from a small distance away.
Kiera felt the awkward silence but didn't know what to say.
Jake turned and stared at him, dropped an awkward bow, and straightened, his mouth lax.
She returned her gaze to the sky at the awkward silence that fell.
There was an awkward pause, and he saw her reach for a chair with trembling hands.
The ensuing silence, however, reminded her once more of their awkward status.
She composed herself and psyched herself up for a day of shopping, awkward questions about Rhyn, and flaky friends.
After an awkward moment, she said, "I hope you know that I would never do anything to hurt you."
The awkward silence fell again.
He felt it awkward to attract everyone's attention and to be considered a lucky man and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris possessed of a Helen.
Then, suddenly, an awkward half-grown boy who sat right in front of the master's desk turned squarely around and whispered to Tommy Jones, three desks away.
The timing may have been awkward but the remaining Eagles managed to replace Bernie with Joe Walsh and continued on with their tour.
Lauren says, "I always felt like an outsider, a most awkward teen never seeming to fit in.
No more an awkward, shy girl, one of her professors called Lauren her "Mezzo Song Bird".
Adults who graduate from college or graduate school and are heading into a professional field may feel awkward at a more typical meal-centered graduation party.
A'Ran's deep voice saved her from filling the awkward quiet.
He was short, near-sighted, ugly and exceptionally awkward.
Their motions in the water are almost as rapid as they are uncertain and awkward when the animals are removed out of their proper element.
During the early years of puberty, many teenagers feel socially awkward at a boy-girl party.
Sometimes these dates seem to have real chemistry, while other times they're just plain awkward.
Facts about Tyra Banks consist of tidbits from her early years growing up awkward to her recent years in television.
Some of them actually seem to have chemistry, while others are a little awkward.
Their food was served and they continued to chat about unimportant things with awkward silences filling the spaces.
They cleaned up the mess and then stood in awkward silence, watching Brutus.
He stopped a safe distance away and was the first to break the awkward silence.
The moment stretched on until it felt awkward even to her.
She wanted to commiserate with the horse's assistant, who seemed as awkward in his role as Jessi felt in hers.
He received Johnson's homage with the most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in a very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow and ate like a cormorant.
The general effect of Livy's narrative is no doubt a little spoilt by the awkward arrangement, adopted from his authorities, which obliges him to group the events by years, and thus to disturb their natural relations and continuity.
Nor did the king indulge his unruly subjects in foreign wars, though he was constantly engaged in negotiations with France, Scotland, Spain and the emperor, which from time to time took awkward turns.
Anyone who has ever tried to pin a corsage on herself or someone else knows how awkward and sometimes difficult it can be.
Many of the men who will admit to wearing mantyhose say that their wives or girlfriends feel more awkward about it than they themselves do.
Blocking and lighting design combined to create haunting tableaux that made a virtue of the Playroom's potentially awkward rhomboid space.
No, " he replied, looking suddenly more awkward than his usual uncomfortable country self.
This panegyric, which is accompanied by a series of epitaphs and is composed in a strain of fearless extravagance, was, as the author declares, written "unfee'd"; it shows that Ford sympathized, as Shakespeare himself is supposed to have done, with the "awkward fate" of the countess's brother, the earl of Essex.
His earlier writings exhibit a lively and easy style, which gives place in his later treatises to sentences which are awkward from their effort after unattainable accuracy, and from the newly-invented technical nomenclature in which they are expressed.
I want to take our relationship further, but I don't want to make our friendship awkward.
Without etiquette, social interactions would be awkward, as well as things like knowing how to dress or behave with other people.
It is inappropriate to dress the flower girl up as a miniature bride, and therefore a hair style using a realistic veil is both awkward and impractical.
In addition to providing support, suggestions and recommendations for your hair type, a forum devoted to long hair can also help motivate you to stay on track as you go through awkward stages of the grow-out phase.