Describing a person, or the way they behave and speak, as rough and lacking manners — loud where quiet is expected, crude, tactless, not knowing which fork to use or which joke not to tell. Talking with your mouth full, spitting on the floor, shouting a private question across a room: uncouth. The word carries a strong flavour that you should notice, because it is not really about kindness. It is about polish. An uncouth person may be perfectly good-hearted; the speaker is saying they were not brought up properly, that they do not know how refined people behave. So the word says as much about the person using it as the person described — it looks down from above. It can sound snobbish, and sometimes it points at class or at country people, which is worth being careful about. It is somewhat formal and a little old-fashioned; today it often appears half-joking, one friend teasing another. Real complaints in modern speech are more likely 'rude', 'gross', or 'he has no manners'. The history is lovely and worth knowing. In Old English uncūþ simply meant 'unknown, unfamiliar, strange'. The meaning drifted: strange → foreign in manner → awkward → badly mannered. What was once 'we don't know him' became 'he doesn't know how to behave'.