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Ill-formed   Listen
adjective
ill-formed  adj.  
1.
(Grammar) Not grammatical; ungrammatical; not conforming to the rules of grammar or accepted usage. Opposite of grammatical.
Synonyms: ungrammatical.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ill-formed" Quotes from Famous Books



... said, was Caligula's uncle; and as Caligula and Agrippina were brother and sister, he was, of course, Agrippina's uncle too. He was at this time about fifty years of age, and he was universally ridiculed and contemned on account of his great mental and personal inferiority. He was weak and ill-formed at his birth, so that even his mother despised him. She called him "an unfinished little monster," and whenever she wished to express her contempt for any one in respect to his understanding, she used to say, "You are ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... on as he had been doing the whole of our journey. It was certainly hard work holding on at the top of the chaise, as it went pitching and rolling, and tumbling about over the ill-formed path, which scarcely deserved the name of a road. Still every now and then I sprang to my feet to look out for the castle which he talked about. I had seen of late a good many castles on the coast of the Mediterranean, Gibraltar, and Malta besides. I had some idea ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... hold barren or dormant powers. In putting into effect that interference which his office exacts of him, he has been more than once terribly assaulted by whites, foiled in their plans, and exasperated by the agency that had stepped in for the baffling of their ill-formed designs. On one occasion, his death was all but brought about by a cruelly ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... emigration has often, by selecting the female emigrants from workhouses, sent forth the ugliest huzzies in creation to be the mothers—the model mothers—of new empires. Here, as in other cases, State necessities have led to the ill-formed and ill-informed being preferred to the well-formed and well-inclined honest poor, as if the worst as well as better qualities of mankind did not often ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... evening. He sprang from the class whose soul takes delight in the music of a concertina, and rises on bank holidays to that height of gaiety which can only be expressed by an interchange of hats. He came from the slums of London, where they breed a race of men, small, ill-formed, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... the Visconti tyrants, was extremely ugly, and so sensitive about his ill-formed person that he scarcely dared to show himself abroad. He habitually lived in secret chambers, changed frequently from room to room, and when he issued from his palace refused salutations in the streets. As an instance of his nervousness, the chroniclers report ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... loud, so shrill, so unearthly, that it echoed like a death-howl along the walls; then stretched out and looked on his ill-formed limbs, extended his long and grappling fingers, and muttered bitterly, "Curse!—curse!—curses on myself! I am a dainty morsel for a fair girl's love! Ah! ah! ah! a dainty morsel!" he repeated, and covered his face ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... as recruiting sergeants did formerly, looking for recruits, with conscripts, entices and ruins them —these foolish lassies—and we have now only the scum of the female sex for servant maids, all that is dull, nasty, common and ill-formed, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... him by the hands; for being in the toils, he is not so swift as to escape me: but in your body you are not ill-formed, O stranger, for women's purposes, on which account you have come to Thebes. For your hair is long, not through wrestling, scattered over your cheeks, full of desire, and you have a white skin from careful preparation; ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... elevation to the peerage, become Lord Howick, was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, and one of the Cabinet Council. He next succeeded Mr. Fox as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and leader in the House of Commons. This ministry was ill-formed, and wanted unity of purpose: their abolition of the Slave Trade was a redeeming measure, in which Lord Howick bore a conspicuous part; but his lordship's motion for the emancipation of the Catholics brought about his dismissal from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - No. 555, Supplement to Volume 19 • Various

... moment that Maria was presented to him, he began some rude jests upon the bad shape of her nose, and called her a tall ill-formed thing. She bore it with the utmost good-humour; but that kind and sweet-tempered woman, Mrs. Mirvan, deserved a better lot. I am amazed ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... in thee. Endowed with wondrous might am I: Where'er my fancy leads I fly. The poor misshapen Sita leave, And me, thy worthier bride receive. Look on my beauty, and prefer A spouse more meet than one like her: I'll eat that ill-formed woman there: Thy brother too her fate shall share. But come, beloved, thou shalt roam With me through all our woodland home; Each varied grove with me shalt seek, And gaze upon each ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... the seraglio, of which he had had painted, in a superior style, the twelve signs of the zodiac; for which his ignorant and bigoted subjects accused him of having conspired against the Deity, in imitating, by gross and ill-formed images, the works of the Almighty. This prince was an intolerable drunkard; so that the Marabets and chiefs of the empire called Abdelmelk to the throne, whom they enabled to take possession of Mequinas. This prince, anticipating the revenge of Dehebby, proposed ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... are rapid and luxurious growers, and it is necessary to pay them constant attention in pruning or nipping the extremities of the shoots, or they will soon become ill-formed and straggling. This is particularly requisite during the rains, when heat and moisture combine to increase their growth to excess; allowing them to enjoy the full influence of the sun during the whole of the cold weather, and part ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... but she will make thee true again." I must take my own path, and learn from them all, without being paralyzed for the day. We need great energy, faith, and self-reliance to endure to-day. My age may not be the best, my position may be bad, my character ill-formed; but Thou, oh Spirit! hast no regard to aught but the seeking heart; and, if I try to walk upright, wilt guide me. What despair must he feel, who, after a whole life passed in trying to build up himself, resolves that it would have been far better if he had kept still as the clod of ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Italian, and his look was slow, subtle and penetrating; his eyes, of a dark grey, were small, and hollow; his complexion was a sun-burnt brown, and the contour of his face, though inclined to oval, was irregular and ill-formed. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... proved correct. A two-edged sword soon rewarded his search; and he was able to exchange for his dragoon helmet the felt hat of an insurgent soldier, with a brass front-plate, bearing in ill-formed letters the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid



Words linked to "Ill-formed" :   ungrammatical, incorrect, grammatical



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