HOMELY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Homely

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/hˈoʊmli/ Listen

adjective

Homely adj. (compar. homelier; superl. homeliest)

Belonging to, or having the characteristics of, home; domestic; familiar; intimate. (Archaic) "With all these men I was right homely, and communed with, them long and oft." "Their homely joys, and destiny obscure."

Plain; unpretending; rude in appearance; unpolished; as, a homely garment; a homely house; homely fare; homely manners. "Now Strephon daily entertains His Chloe in the homeliest strains."

Of plain or coarse features; uncomely; ugly; usually used of people, especially women; contrary to handsome. "None so homely but loves a looking-glass."

adverb

Homely adv. Plainly; rudely; coarsely; as, homely dressed. (R.)

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Etymology of 'Homely'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Homely" Quotes from Famous Books

... and refinement not to be unreasonably shocked by such vulgarities. But we should at least endeavour to correct the rash judgments which we may be disposed to form on these occasions, and should learn to recognize and to prize a sound texture and just configuration, though disguised beneath a homely or uncouth drapery. It was an Apostle who declared that he had come (to the learned and accomplished Grecians too) "not with excellency of speech, or the wisdom of words." From these he had studiously abstained, lest he should have seemed to owe his success rather to the graces of oratory, ...

— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... afterwards in later life how fine the right choice, the vigorous resistance, the honest perseverance might have been; but the worst faults of boyhood have something exciting and even romantic about them—they would not be so alluring if they had not—while the homely virtues of honesty, frankness, modesty, and self-restraint appear too often as a dull and priggish abstention from the more daring and adventurous joys of eager living. If evil were always ugly and goodness were always beautiful at ...

— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over and around it; as if it were no portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in cloud-land, with only imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden houses and walk its homely lanes, and the unpicturesque prolixity of its main street. Henceforth it ceases to be a reality of my life; I am a citizen of somewhere else. My good townspeople will not much regret me, for—though ...

— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... little tale that comes dressed in very homely garb. The story has in it a bit of that that makes the heart burn. It has all the marks of real life. It ...

— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... Witch, all proverbial Speeches, and which testify'd what Tools it was Satan generally work'd with; and these old Spectres, they tell us, us'd to ride thro' the Air in the Night, and upon Broomsticks too, all mighty homely Doings; some say they us'd to go to visit their Grand Seignior the Devil, in those Nocturnal Perambulations: But be that as it will, 'tis certain the Devil has chang'd hands, and that now he walks about the World cloth'd in Beauty, cover'd with ...

— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

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