(a.) Wanting dexterity in the use of the hands, or of instruments; not dexterous; without skill; clumsy; wanting ease, grace, or effectiveness in movement; ungraceful; as, he was awkward at a trick; an awkward boy.
(a.) Not easily managed or effected; embarrassing.
(a.) Perverse; adverse; untoward.
Example Sentences:
(1) But she has struggled – quite awkwardly – to articulate her evolution on same-sex marriage, and has left environmental activists wondering what her exact energy policy is.
(2) Once installed, the alliance will become an awkward, obstructionist presence, committed, in the words of the Northern League's Matteo Salvini, to "a different Europe, based on work and peoples and not in the one based on servitude to the euro and banks, ready to let us die from immigration and unemployment".
(3) There is no getting around the awkward fact that in Bristol West Stephen Williams represents a constituency of 82,503 while his neighbouring Labour MP in Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, speaks for 69,347 constituents.
(4) Our team of reporters have spent the last week on an intensive bikram yoga course in order to get themselves into the rather awkward position of having their ears to the ground, their eyes to the skies and their fingers on the pulse.
(5) Jesús Navas played a one-two with Touré down the right and from his awkward cross the England squad goalkeeper fumbled the ball inside his six-yard area from where Fernando scored with an overhead kick as dextrous as it was surprising.
(6) It's straight at Stockdale, though the keeper needs two attempts to get the ball under control in these awkward conditions.
(7) And then the ball is in Caballero's hands.At the other end, Courtois beats away an awkward, bouncing drive from long range.
(8) That is an awkward, indeed risky, time to be contemplating takeoff.
(9) Despite his insistence that comedy should be colour-blind, Amos admits black audiences prefer the black circuit, where "you know the material isn't going to be racist or make you feel awkward, where you feel like you belong".
(10) And yet for all his anti-establishment credentials, Mr Galloway is as practised as any of his New Labour enemies at squirming away from awkward questions.
(11) Our calculations show that the biological inactive O-methyl-delta 8-THC orients with its long axis parallel to the lipid acyl chains, whereas the psychoactive cannabinoids assume "awkward" orientations in which the hydroxyl groups are pointing towards the bilayer interface, presumably to maximize the amphipathic interaction with the membrane.
(12) Why have they not done away with their own bodies and hair and all their awkward woman-type things?
(13) And I said: 'Look, man, I just got here, if it's OK, I don't wanna just walk in and take a picture – it'd make me feel awkward.'
(14) The SBS, in association with fluoroscopy, permits simple surgical implementation with accurate localization and extraction of foreign bodies, with the elimination of awkward, unpredictable, and time consuming retrieval techniques.
(15) What some people saw in this mistake was again a cultural bias against black art, unconscious though it may be This is why this mix-up mattered more than a bit of onstage awkwardness.
(16) April 16, 2014 The hesitancy – or unwillingness – of Ukrainian troops to use their weapons has produced multiple awkward confrontations with civilian crowds Wednesday, including one in Pchyolkino south of Kratamorsk, which seems still to be unresolved after an hours-long standoff.
(17) Sitting opposite her as she eats croissants and fixes on espresso it is hard to equate the immaculate perfection of Guillem the performer, in bobbed wig and suspenders last night, with the awkwardly engaging and somewhat bed-headed Guillem in skinny jeans and T-shirt this morning.
(18) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Donald Trump and Theresa May awkwardly hold hands at White House
(19) Even that took a finely weighted pass and an awkward stretching first touch from two very fine technicians.
(20) What's more, his genial stiffness and shy self-awareness give him a kind of awkward dignity compared to the preening smugness of Cruz.
Scrape
Definition:
(v. t.) To rub over the surface of (something) with a sharp or rough instrument; to rub over with something that roughens by removing portions of the surface; to grate harshly over; to abrade; to make even, or bring to a required condition or form, by moving the sharp edge of an instrument breadthwise over the surface with pressure, cutting away excesses and superfluous parts; to make smooth or clean; as, to scrape a bone with a knife; to scrape a metal plate to an even surface.
(v. t.) To remove by rubbing or scraping (in the sense above).
(v. t.) To collect by, or as by, a process of scraping; to gather in small portions by laborious effort; hence, to acquire avariciously and save penuriously; -- often followed by together or up; as, to scrape money together.
(v. t.) To express disapprobation of, as a play, or to silence, as a speaker, by drawing the feet back and forth upon the floor; -- usually with down.
(v. i.) To rub over the surface of anything with something which roughens or removes it, or which smooths or cleans it; to rub harshly and noisily along.
(v. i.) To occupy one's self with getting laboriously; as, he scraped and saved until he became rich.
(v. i.) To play awkwardly and inharmoniously on a violin or like instrument.
(v. i.) To draw back the right foot along the ground or floor when making a bow.
(n.) The act of scraping; also, the effect of scraping, as a scratch, or a harsh sound; as, a noisy scrape on the floor; a scrape of a pen.
(n.) A drawing back of the right foot when bowing; also, a bow made with that accompaniment.
(n.) A disagreeable and embarrassing predicament out of which one can not get without undergoing, as it were, a painful rubbing or scraping; a perplexity; a difficulty.
Example Sentences:
(1) In invasive epidermoid carcinoma, the accuracy with the self-collected specimens approached the physician-scraped specimens.
(2) A microsomal preparation containing labeled endocytic vesicles was prepared by cell scraping, homogenization, and differential centrifugation.
(3) We compared two noninvasive methods of sampling exfoliated cervical cells--cervicovaginal lavage and scrape-Cytobrush.
(4) We therefore surveyed patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) regarding early adult consumption of fruits and vegetables usually eaten raw, with seeds that are swallowed or scraped with the teeth.
(5) The heads were examined for adult and larval meningeal worms (Parelaphostrongylus tenuis) by physical examination of the brain surfaces, and the Baermann technique, respectively, and for ear mites by examination of ear scrapings.
(6) He was competing in his third Boston marathon, and he came away with a scraped knee and a feeling of shock.
(7) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
(8) Psoriatic skin scales, non-sterile and sterile, were tested for stimulatory effect on PMNs and compared with the effect of normal skin scrapings.
(9) Our data provide the first evidence in humans that significant inflammatory changes in conjunctival scrapings are present long after allergen exposure has ended.
(10) This was partly because of its composition, scraped together from around the world but without the backing of Arab and Muslim leaders.
(11) Read more on Scottish independence • ' I believe in solidarity with the folk living south of Carlisle ' • ' The UK is on shifting sands – we can't assume survival ' • ' Better Together is truly scraping the barrel now ' The fact is that far from fearing the breakup of the UK, the English are looking at the benefits that devolution has brought the Scots and asking why they are not able to enjoy the same.
(12) Cellular abnormalities were demonstrated in 90.4% of women having scrapings of visible lesions and in 88.1% of women studied by 4-quadrant vaginal scrapings in the absence of clinical disease.
(13) These problems were met by introducing the indicator into the cells with the scrape-loading technique adapted for use with Dictyostelium and the construction of a new fura-2 derivative, fura-2-dextran.
(14) The overlying superficial and wing cells were removed by mechanical scraping to expose basal cells attached to their basal lamina.
(15) Scrapes detected more HPV 18 (10% vs. 2%, P = less than 0.05) and HPV 31 (7% vs. 3%, not significant) than did the biopsies, but biopsies detected more HPV 16 (42% vs. 33%, not significant).
(16) Epithelial cells were scraped from the tonsillar surfaces of 15 patients with current acute tonsillitis (AT) and of 15 individually matched healthy persons.
(17) We compared swab and scraping (Rhino-probe) technics in the nasal cytology obtention for eosinophils count in 36 patients with a range of 2-46 years old (mean age 18.6 years) with diagnosis of Allergic Rhinitis.
(18) Morphologically distinguishable differences in enamel at the occlusal site was examined as to whether the tooth is treated by acid solution, low-viscosity acid gel, or high-viscosity acid gel as well as the extent of involvement, using either a conventional or scraping method of application.
(19) Fifteen New Zealand white rabbits underwent laparotomy, with scrape and cut lesions created bilaterally on the uterine body and horns, respectively.
(20) The conjunctival sheets were cultured on epithelial-scraped corneal stromal carriers in vitro.