un·con·gen·ial

(ŭn′kən-jēn′yəl)

adj.

1. Not compatible or sympathetic, as in character.

2. Not appropriate; unsuitable.

3. Not pleasing; disagreeable.

un′con·ge′ni·al′ity (-jē′nē-ăl′ĭ-tē) n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

uncongenial

(ˌʌnkənˈdʒiːnjəl; -nɪəl)

adj

not friendly, pleasant, or agreeable

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.	1.	uncongenial - not suitable to your tastes or needs; "the uncongenial roommates were always fighting"; "the task was uncongenial to one sensitive to rebuffs" incompatible incompatible - not compatible; "incompatible personalities"; "incompatible colors" unfriendly - not disposed to friendship or friendliness; "an unfriendly coldness of manner"; "an unfriendly action to take" unsympathetic - not sympathetic or disposed toward; "unsympathetic officialdom"; "people unsympathetic to the revolution"; "his dignity made him seem aloof and unsympathetic" congenial - suitable to your needs; "a congenial atmosphere to work in"; "two congenial spirits united...by mutual confidence and reciprocal virtues"- T.L.Peacock
	2.	uncongenial - very unfavorable to life or growth; "a hostile climate"; "an uncongenial atmosphere"; "an uncongenial soil"; "the unfriendly environment at high altitudes" hostile, unfriendly inhospitable - unfavorable to life or growth; "the barren inhospitable desert"; "inhospitable mountain areas"
	3.	uncongenial - used of plant stock or scions; incapable of being grafted incompatible - not compatible; "incompatible personalities"; "incompatible colors"

uncongenial

adjective

1. Devoid of harmony and accord:

discordant, inconsonant, inharmonious, unharmonious.

2. Not pleasant or agreeable:

bad, disagreeable, displeasing, offensive, unpleasant, unsympathetic.

Informal: icky.

Slang: yucky.

Translations

antipathique

uncongenial

[ˈʌnkənˈdʒiːnɪəl] ADJ [person] → antipático, poco amigable; [company, work, surroundings] → desagradable, poco agradable
to be uncongenial to sb → ser antipático or desagradable con algn

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

uncongenial

[ˌʌnkənˈdʒiːniəl] adj

(= not to one's taste) [person] → inintéressant(e)

[atmosphere] → froid(e)

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

uncongenial

adj person → unliebenswürdig, nicht einnehmend; work, surroundings → unerfreulich; he finds this place uncongenial → dieser Ort entspricht ihm or seinem Wesen nicht; to be uncongenial to somebody → sich jdm gegenüber wenig liebenswürdig verhalten

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

uncongenial

[ˌʌnkənˈdʒiːnɪəl] adj (person) → poco simpatico/a; (surroundings, work) → poco piacevole

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Then there were two letters which had to be laid side by side and compared before she could make out the truth of their story, and even when she knew the facts she could not decide what to make of them; and finally she had to reflect upon a great many pages from a cousin who found himself in financial difficulties, which forced him to the uncongenial occupation of teaching the young ladies of Bungay to play upon the violin.

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It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary, but life-long home.

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It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.

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I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own.

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All this she had said, and with the earnestness of sincerity; yet this was not enough, for he immediately denied there being anything uncongenial in their characters, or anything unfriendly in their situations; and positively declared, that he would still love, and still hope!

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If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the young man was uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their club) but because the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed.

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And, far from saving anything by Annabella's inheritance of her pin-money, he had a positive loss to put up with, in the shape of some hundreds extracted yearly from his income, as alimony to his uncongenial wife.

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Having made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and receiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself to uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the fading landscape.

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For the companion who is merely uncongenial in the mediaeval world becomes exasperating in the classical.

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The position of uncertainty, of indecision, was still the same as at home--worse, in fact, since it was impossible to take any step, impossible to see Vronsky, and she had to remain here among outsiders, in company so uncongenial to her present mood.

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Modern life stretched out its steam feeler to this point three or four times a day, touched the native existences, and quickly withdrew its feeler again, as if what it touched had been uncongenial.

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Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial sur- roundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, be- came inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest.

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