Ungodly

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ʌnˈɡɒdli/

Definitions

1. Shockingly bad, unreasonable, or occurring at an extremely inconvenient time, especially very early or very late
2. Extremely wicked or sinful in nature, often associated with a lack of reverence
3. remarkably excessive in a way that defies moral standards or expectations

Etymology: Ungodly began life as a plain negation. Its Old English ancestor, "godlīċ," meant "divine" or "godlike," and adding the prefix un- simply reversed it, so the earliest sense was "not divine" or "impious." Over time it narrowed to "wicked" and "sinful," and from there it drifted into everyday speech as a word for anything outrageous or unreasonable, as in "an ungodly hour." The word has a second, older life that the modern sense hides. Middle English "ungodli" was also used as an adverb meaning "cruelly, maliciously, wickedly," and in some uses "unfairly" or "rudely." Its sense of "sinful" and its sense of "very bad" were therefore once separate strands that later merged into the adjective we use now.

Synonyms: immoral, wicked, sinful, blasphemous, unholy

Antonyms: holy, righteous, virtuous, godly, pious