different between uncomfortable vs incommodious

English

Etymology

un- +? comfortable

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?n?k?mf.t?.b?l/, /?n?k?m.f?.t?.b?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?n?k?m.f?.t?.b?l/, /?n?k?mf.t?.b?l/

Adjective

uncomfortable (comparative more uncomfortable, superlative most uncomfortable)

1. Not comfortable; causing discomfort.

2. Experiencing discomfort.
3. Uneasy or anxious.

4. Put off or disgusted.

Usage notes

Although the word uncomfortable looks (etymonically) like one of its senses could be synonymous with inconsolable, it does not have that sense; the absence of that sense is simply a lexical gap. In parallel, the same is true of comfortable and consolable, as well as comfortability and consolability.

Synonyms

• ill at ease

Antonyms

• comfortable
• ergonomic

Derived terms

• uncomfortableness
• uncomfortably

Translations

English

Etymology

in- +? commodious

Adjective

incommodious (comparative more incommodious, superlative most incommodious)

1. (of a place occupied by people) Uncomfortable or inhospitable, especially due to being cramped.
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, ch. 7:

     Tellson's Bank by Temple Bar . . . was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious.

   • 1909, Henry James, "Venice" in Italian Hours:

     The place is small and incommodious, the pictures are out of sight and ill-lighted, the custodian is rapacious, the visitors are mutually intolerable, but the shabby little chapel is a palace of art.

   • 2010 June 15, Katherine Knorr, "Contemplating Art, and Its Sideshow," New York Times (retrieved 19 July 2012):

     In this they succeeded last week, despite menacing clouds and slick pavement, filling to capacity (and until past midnight) the 1937 building’s incommodious terrace with a mostly young and fairly international crowd.

2. Discomforting, inconvenient, or unsuitable.
   • 1781, Samuel Johnson, "Savage" in Lives of the Poets:

     He was sometimes so far compassionated by those who knew both his merit and distresses that they received him into their families, but they soon discovered him to be a very incommodious inmate.

   • 1859, George Eliot, Adam Bede, ch. 52:

     "What a silly you must be!" a comment which Tommy followed up by seizing Dinah with both arms, and dancing along by her side with incommodious fondness.

   • 1865, Charles Darwin, The Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants, ch. 1:

     A dense whorl of many leaves would apparently be incommodious for a twining plant.

Translations

References

• incommodious at OneLook Dictionary Search