Homely

Plain in appearance. Used by Shakespeare and Milton, but obsolescent in England, and much used in America.

1794.  

1821.  We have homely women, we have ignorant women, we have silly women, we have coarse women, and we have vicious women.—T. Dwight, ‘Travels,’ iv. 477.

1827.  The Yankee will say of a young lady, “She is a real pretty girl, but as homely as a basket of chips.”—Mass. Spy, Nov. 28: from The Berkshire American.

1833.  “It is a rule in our country,” said he, “when a man is remarkably ugly, to make him a present of a knife. Keep that, if you please, stranger, till you meet with a homelier human than yourself, and then give it to him.”—James Hall, ‘The Harpe’s Head,’ p. 92 (Phila.).

1838.  Maj. Van Buren is about to be married to a rich and homely Miss S. of South Carolina.—The Jeffersonian, Albany, Oct. 28: from The N.Y. Times.

1847.  That hasn’t anythink to do with calling anybody’s wife homely.—Charles F. Briggs, ‘Tom Pepper,’ p. 49.

1848.  All, in short, agreed that Fred. had possessed many excellent traits, and had been a valuable member of society and the choir, only he was ‘very slow-motioned and very homely.’—Knick. Mag., xxxii. 124 (Aug.).

1848.  [He] produced from his pantaloons-pocket the homely knife—[elsewhere described as a huge bone-handled concern.]—Id., 125.

1856.  Zephaniah was about the homeliest looking staddle that ever sprouted from the old Varmount stock.—Weekly Oregonian, Aug. 2.

1869.  I said, “She is not tall, she is short; she is not beautiful, she is homely; she is graceful enough, I grant, but she is rather boisterous.”—Mark Twain, ‘The Innocents Abroad,’ ch. l.

1852.  See UGLY.

a. 1880.  See Appendix XXIII.