How to Use unseemly in a Sentence

unseemly

adjective
  • He spent unseemly amounts of money on himself.
  • Democrats will spend a lot of time talking about the unseemly rush to fill Ginsburg’s seat.
    Mark Sherman, chicagotribune.com, 11 Oct. 2020
  • Democrats will spend a lot of time talking about the unseemly rush to fill Ginsburg's seat.
    Mark Sherman, Star Tribune, 11 Oct. 2020
  • Now President Joe Biden has a chance to make a sharp break from this unseemly past.
    Matt Ford, The New Republic, 2 Feb. 2021
  • To the straight world—and much of the gay world—the leather scene was the unseemly underbelly of gay liberation.
    Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 30 Jan. 2023
  • The current weeping and wailing over the Red Sox is unseemly.
    Bob Ryan, BostonGlobe.com, 28 July 2023
  • Even if Cohn had called the vote perfectly, his eagerness to call the next should have been unseemly.
    Christopher Beha, Harper's Magazine, 24 Nov. 2020
  • Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward are all adrift in ways that seem selfish and unseemly.
    Elizabeth Holmes, Town & Country, 21 Oct. 2020
  • And some of the more unseemly elements of the cell ag process are also its most cumbersome.
    Kate Aronoff, The New Republic, 29 Sep. 2021
  • Dents or glass damage from hail can be at best unseemly and at worst a safety issue.
    Claire Rafford, The Indianapolis Star, 21 June 2021
  • Olivia Wilde was served legal docs from Jason Sudeikis in an unseemly way.
    Charles Trepany, USA TODAY, 25 Aug. 2022
  • That, of course, is why a cluttered home is both so common in America and so unseemly.
    Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 8 June 2020
  • This looks like an unseemly attempt to shift blame from the White House if the war continues into a U.S. election year.
    The Editorial Board, WSJ, 25 Aug. 2023
  • An out-of-the-blue showstopper would seem to accomplish that unseemly goal.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes, 10 July 2022
  • The puppet’s antics also put him on the radar of a couple unseemly fellows.
    Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 9 Dec. 2022
  • Grant’s, the aggressor to avoid a feared unseemly effect.
    Mike Barnes, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Dec. 2022
  • To members of the Majali tribe, the manner of the arrests seemed unjustified and unseemly.
    New York Times, 10 Apr. 2021
  • But talking right now about Tiger playing golf again is both unseemly and ridiculous.
    Christine Brennan, USA TODAY, 24 Feb. 2021
  • But at least one analyst said the payments to the richest man in West Virginia are unseemly, given his wealth.
    BostonGlobe.com, 18 Oct. 2019
  • There ensued a legal tussle so unseemly that many believe the Tata brand lost some of its luster.
    Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 13 July 2021
  • But at a time when the Grammy Awards are working hard to emerge from years of unseemly controversies, at least this one seems to be about music.
    Chris Willman, Variety, 13 Oct. 2021
  • There was something unseemly, even gloating, in how Hilary and Deirdre were holding up his suits now for judgment, sniffing the armpits of his shirts and even the crotch of his trousers.
    Tessa Hadley, The New Yorker, 21 Mar. 2022
  • While never unseemly enough to chirp its tires, the Ghost will launch hard with the nose-up attitude common to the powerful but softly sprung.
    Mike Duff, Car and Driver, 23 Sep. 2020
  • The body remains taut, and there is no cowl shake, axle tramp, or unseemly rattles or vibrations, even at full throttle.
    Brock Yates, Car and Driver, 29 Dec. 2022
  • It’s as unlikely—and unseemly—a media war as the country has ever seen.
    Ben Widdicombe, Town & Country, 8 Feb. 2019
  • Uhl says that utilizing this unique aspect of Twitch is unseemly.
    Matthew Gault, Wired, 5 Oct. 2020
  • The failure of the Democratic ticket to acknowledge this unseemly pas de deux led to its defeat in 2016.
    Washington Post, 12 Nov. 2019
  • Trump's treatment of Pence has reverberated in the White House and among campaign aides, many of whom see it as unseemly and unfair.
    Josh Dawsey, BostonGlobe.com, 11 Jan. 2021
  • The past week's performance was disappointing and the losses unseemly, but that doesn’t mean it’s time yet for Louisville fans to hit the panic button on the season.
    Hayes Gardner, The Courier-Journal, 18 Feb. 2020
  • The spectacle that ensued this week was unseemly and chaotic.
    Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 7 July 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unseemly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: