- 1不得體的、不合宜的、有失體面的。重點是「場合不對、失了分寸」，不是道德上的壞。中文的「不成體統」「有失身分」很接近。
Behaviour that does not fit the occasion — not so much wicked as , , the wrong thing for where you are and who you are. Laughing loudly at a funeral is unseemly. So is an unseemly rush for the buffet, or an unseemly argument between two officials in public. The word carries a faint : the speaker is judging by manners rather than by morals, and often with a touch of dry humour. Note the grammar trap — it ends in -ly but it is an adjective, not an adverb: 'unseemly behaviour', 'it would be unseemly to ask'. It is formal and slightly old-fashioned; you meet it in newspapers, speeches and official complaints, while friends would say 'that was so out of line' or 'not a good look'. Very often it appears in the fixed pattern 'an unseemly + noun of scrambling' — an unseemly haste, an unseemly scramble, an unseemly .
組成un-（不）＋ seemly（得體的、合宜的）。seemly 這個字今天單獨用已經很少見了，但它還活在 unseemly 裡面。它來自古英語的 seem，原意是「合適、相稱」，跟現在「看起來像」的 seem 是同一個源頭。
同家族的字
- seemlythe positive form — proper, fitting; rare on its own nowadays
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
unseemlyadj
- 1
Inconsistent with established standards of good form or taste.
- He was drunk and made some very unseemly comments.
- Yet this I can say, I was very wary of giving them occasion, by any unseemly action, to make them averse to going on pilgrimage.
unseemlyadv
- 1
In an unseemly manner.
- […] [Charitie] Doeth not behaue it selfe vnseemly, seeketh not her owne, is not easily prouoked, thinketh no euill,
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。