Unenviably

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. In a manner that is far from pleasant, leaving someone in a situation nobody would want to be in
2. Describing something done in a way that brings little pleasure, comfort or appeal to those involved
3. Done in an undesirable fashion, so that the result is unappealing or hard to envy

Etymology: "Unenviably" is a plain stack of English parts, and its history is simply the sum of those parts. The core is "envy", which came into English from Old French "envie", itself from Latin "invidia", meaning ill will or resentment toward another's advantage. Adding "-able" gave "enviable", meaning worth envying, and the Old English prefix "un-" (meaning "not") turned it into "unenviable", describing something that no one would want to envy. The final piece is the suffix "-ly", which descends from an Old English form "-līce" and makes adjectives into adverbs, so "unenviably" describes doing something in a way that is not enviable. Its own ancestors run back through Proto-Germanic "*līkaz", meaning "body" or "form", which is also the source of the English word "like" in its sense of similarity.

Synonyms: undesirably

Antonyms: enviably