(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.
Stiff
Definition:
(superl.) Not easily bent; not flexible or pliant; not limber or flaccid; rigid; firm; as, stiff wood, paper, joints.
(superl.) Not liquid or fluid; thick and tenacious; inspissated; neither soft nor hard; as, the paste is stiff.
(superl.) Firm; strong; violent; difficult to oppose; as, a stiff gale or breeze.
(superl.) Not easily subdued; unyielding; stubborn; obstinate; pertinacious; as, a stiff adversary.
(superl.) Not natural and easy; formal; constrained; affected; starched; as, stiff behavior; a stiff style.
(superl.) Harsh; disagreeable; severe; hard to bear.
(superl.) Bearing a press of canvas without careening much; as, a stiff vessel; -- opposed to crank.
(superl.) Very large, strong, or costly; powerful; as, a stiff charge; a stiff price.
Example Sentences:
(1) If you turn the bowl upside down, the whites should be stiff enough not to fall out.
(2) The stiffness of the fibre first rose abruptly in response to stretch and then started to decrease linearly while the stretch went on; after the completion of stretch the stiffness decreased towards a steady value which was equal to that during the isometric tetanus at the same sarcomere length, indicating that the enhancement of isometric force is associated with decreased stiffness.
(3) Current methodology for the in vitro determination of aortic and large artery stiffness is reviewed and involves three approaches: (1) the estimation of distensibility by pulse wave velocity measurement; (2) the estimation of distensibility from the fractional diameter change of a given arterial segment by imaging techniques (e.g., angiography, Doppler ultrasound) against pressure change; (3) the estimation of compliance by determining volume change against pressure change in the arterial system during diastolic runoff from the Windkessel model of the circulation.
(4) The maintenance of adequate blood circulation requires a sufficient ventricular contractility; in addition, to eject blood, the ventricles must first receive a sufficient volume, requiring a low diastolic stiffness.
(5) Stiffness was reduced in approximate proportion to the ramp stretch rate, and the reduction was confined largely to the elastic component.
(6) Proof stress, ultimate tensile strength, elongation, and plastic stiffness have been measured and results compared by use of analyses of variance.
(7) In other words, the stiffness of these areas was low and the recovery from deformation was fast.
(8) But the same court also just refused to hear an appeal of a Minnesota woman who's been ordered to pay more than $220,000 for downloading two-dozen songs – a testament to Congress' gift to Hollywood and its allies in the form of absurdly stiff penalties for minor infringement.
(9) The tension-length relation for the unstimulated (passive) cell is also linear between 1r and the elastic limit, but is displaced from the active tension-length curve and is of reduced stiffness.
(10) Bilaterals in summit seasons can be stiff exchanges, where digressions can carry risks: not enough said, too much said.
(11) We measured the stiffness of comparable configurations (1 or 2 bars) under axial compression, four-point-bending in two planes, and torsion.
(12) Tiny, tiny... rodents – some soft and grey, some brown with black stripes, in paintings, posters, wallcharts, thumb-tacked magazine clippings and poorly executed crayon drawings, hurling themselves fatally in their thousands over the cliff of their island home; or crudely taxidermied and mounted, eyes glazed and little paws frozen stiff – on every available surface.
(13) The bone stiffness also correlates strongly with the geometry (area) and slightly with bone mass; however, an unexpectedly low correlation was found between stiffness and density.
(14) Finally, fibrosis may paradoxically reduce passive stiffness if it leads to a thinning of the interventricular septum.
(15) A young male nephrotic patient, who was given small doses of clofibrate for hyperlipaemia, developed muscle pain, stiffness and very high serum levels of muscle enzymes.
(16) Impaired left ventricular stiffness may be an additional criterion for using corinfar in patients with coronary heart disease.
(17) The increase of elastic fibres following denervation and reinnervation represents an obviously meaningful reaction that may compensate for loss of tonic properties of muscle spindles without causing stiffness.
(18) Only the bone-patellar tendon-bone unit had maximum force and stiffness greater than that of the ACL.
(19) The initial stiffness is poorly described by material or catheter gauge.
(20) The stiffness tester and torque meter were found to yield nearly the same measurements of bending deformation for orthodontic wires as small as .007 inch diameter, provided the different bending apparatus are calibrated to each other.