| / English Dictionary |
NASTY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: nastier , nastiest
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Disgustingly dirty; filled or smeared with offensive matter
Example:
a nasty pigsty of a room
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
dirty; soiled; unclean (soiled or likely to soil with dirt or grime)
Derivation:
nastiness (a state characterized by foul or disgusting dirt and refuse)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Characterized by obscenity
Example:
smutty jokes
Synonyms:
cruddy; filthy; foul; nasty; smutty
Classified under:
Similar:
dirty ((of behavior or especially language) characterized by obscenity or indecency)
Derivation:
nastiness (malevolence by virtue of being malicious or spiteful or nasty)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Exasperatingly difficult to handle or circumvent
Example:
a good man to have on your side in a tight situation
Synonyms:
nasty; tight
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Offensive or even (of persons) malicious
Example:
Will he say nasty things at my funeral?
Synonyms:
awful; nasty
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
dirty; filthy; lousy (vile; despicable)
grotty (very unpleasant or offensive)
hateful; mean (characterized by malice)
Also:
unpleasant (offensive or disagreeable; causing discomfort or unhappiness)
Attribute:
nastiness (the quality of being highly unpleasant)
Antonym:
nice (pleasant or pleasing or agreeable in nature or appearance)
Derivation:
nastiness (the quality of being highly unpleasant)
nastiness (malevolence by virtue of being malicious or spiteful or nasty)
Context examples:
Then, turning affectionately to me, with her cheek against mine, “Am I a naughty mama to you, Davy? Am I a nasty, cruel, selfish, bad mama? Say I am, my child; say “yes”, dear boy, and Peggotty will love you; and Peggotty's love is a great deal better than mine, Davy.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Open carriages are nasty things.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
The gunner turned damned nasty at the last, and I had to square him with an extra hundred dollars or it would have been nitsky for you and me. ‘Nothin’ doin’!’ says he, and he meant it, too, but the last hundred did it.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how "that nasty Jane Eyre" had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly—Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I’m not very good at telling a story, Dr. Watson, but it is like this with me: I used to have a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse, of Drapers’ Gardens, but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan, as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“It’s nasty weather like this here that turns heads grey before their time,” he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Summerlee was wiping the blood from a cut in his forehead, while I was tying up a nasty stab in the muscle of the neck.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I feel that I must be nasty to him, and even when I don't happen to feel that way, why, he's nasty to me, anyway.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
“Did not you ask it for anything?” said the wife, “we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage.”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
As it is, it’s in a nasty prison, and you’ll do him only a kindness by breaking down the door.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
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