How To Use Clumsy In A Sentence

  • Gideon could see the places where the silver was wearing off the cane and he noticed a good deal of clumsy darning on the inside of the cloak, as though the lining had come away from the backing several times.
  • I might have understood how clumsy I was, when I was rearing my children in the most utter idleness and luxury, to reform other people and their children, who were perishing from idleness in what I called the den of the Rzhanoff house, where, nevertheless, three-fourths of the people toil for themselves and for others. What to Do?
  • Overall, this is a clumsy, uneven affair which, by the time the final credits roll, grates.
  • But gack, it's just so clumsy here, and so very, very self-conscious.
  • Her secret fear was that her performance had been clumsy and sophomoric. BABYCAKES
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  • Fumbling, my fingers clumsy and slow, I fought with the buttons on his soaking-wet shirt.
  • Politics is wily, skilled and intelligent, not clumsy and ham-handed.
  • But, at the heart of this argument, I have reached the conclusion that I'm a slightly clumsy, rather ineffectual speaker.
  • After a few minutes, with his thoughts fuzzier than they'd been and his fingers more clumsy, he returned to washing his wounds. EVERVILLE
  • Growling and sweating the ursine fellow untied the knot, picking at it with clumsy claws, then reeled her down fast. A TIME OF WAR
  • He would smile mysteriously at her, or look at her with a new kind of interest that made her feel awkward and clumsy around him.
  • The enemy ships made a clumsy tack northerly, not expecting to see Indefatigable in their path.
  • Billings was a clumsy, maladroit man, his fingers astonishingly competent with a wireless set, his other limbs ungainly and shambling. IN LOVE AND WAR
  • As the sides of the scow were a little higher than usual, and the interior of the cabin had no more elevation than was necessary for comfort, this unusual addition had neither a very clumsy nor a very obtrusive appearance. The Deerslayer
  • Faced with technophobia, hyped techno-optimism, and Futurist discourses of progress that make us blind to the clumsy reality of computers, how do we think about and live with technology?
  • In a complex of lonely and socially clumsy bachelors, disheartened by too many rejections, she was news.
  • Michaelis made a clumsy attempt to distract him.
  • She viewed herself as she was sure Jake would: a twenty-five-year-old woman, grossly tall, apparently too clumsy to hold a book, and with a demimondaine petticoat contradicting a dress sewn for a much younger woman. Hearts
  • Carne (who had taken most kindly to the fortune which made him an untrue Englishman) clapped his breast with both hands; not proudly, as a Frenchman does, nor yet with that abashment and contempt of demonstration which make a true Briton very clumsy in such doings; while Daniel Tugwell, being very solid, and by no means “emotional” — as people call it nowadays — was looking at him, to the utmost of his power Springhaven
  • Clumsy birds have to start flying early. 
  • He denied the announcement was clumsy and insensitive.
  • Thus Rukhi – and she turned to abuse her clumsy little handmaiden for overboiling the rice and overbaking the coarse rye bread, for not tethering the donkey, and for breaking a new pot of spring water. Love and Life Behind the Purdah
  • The smooth movers usually have to dance with clumsy celebrities. The Sun
  • My only criticism with this particular speech has nothing to do with the "neanderthal" comment but, rather, with her clumsy use of metaphor ... Congresswoman says some senators 'Neanderthals'
  • At sea, the sailors are continually engaged in "parcelling," "serving," and in a thousand ways ornamenting and repairing the numberless shrouds and stays; mending sails, or turning one side of the deck into a rope-walk, where they manufacture a clumsy sort of twine, called spun-yarn. Redburn. His First Voyage
  • But behind a clumsy grasp of administration lies a sure populist touch. Times, Sunday Times
  • And it hurts when we have this clumsy, plodding exchanges because he was my best friend, and now we can't seem to talk to each other without diffidence and discomfort.
  • Allen kept staring at Earl's sternum, bare; the young, healthy skin fogged with red chilblain under the clumsy coat. ABSOLUTE ZERO
  • I'm so completely clumsy and incapable of handling a sword or a gun that I just gave up on it.
  • The cutlass was a clumsy weapon, but sea fighting was hardly a fine art. Sharpe's Devil
  • Also, larger oars were heavy and clumsy to maneuver and required multiple oarsmen.
  • No longer must we rely on our clumsy thumbs to arbitrarily slam derailleurs into the proper speed.
  • He is an awkward, clumsy boy in the community.
  • In this case, an exception should be made not only for clumsy phrases, but for simple oversights, such as a girl going to "reconnoiter" rather than rendezvous with her boyfriend. Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones – review
  • He's clumsy and untidy but then again he's always willing to help.
  • Unfortunately, I was still very clumsy behind the wheel of the jeep.
  • With most artists of his stature, this would more than likely involve a clumsy catharsis resulting in a crude ego trip.
  • I envy her recklessness, the roughness of her unpracticed pirouettes, the occasional clumsy misstep that inspires no apologies.
  • The gaudy tanagers, that cannot be tamed -- the noisy lories, the resplendent trogons, the toucans with their huge clumsy bills, and the tiny bee-birds (the _trochili_ and _colibri_) -- all glance through the sunny vistas. The Rifle Rangers
  • Thus the newspaper man, wearily certain that regardless of what he asks or how he asks it, he will hear for answers only the clumsy asininities behind which the personalities, leaders and sacred white cows pompously attitudinize, gets so that he mumbles a bit incoherently. A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago
  • In excursions of this kind it is customary to "hobble" the horses; that is, to tie their fore-legs together, so that they cannot run either fast or far, but are free enough to amble about with a clumsy sort of hop in search of food. The Dog Crusoe and his Master
  • Clumsy birds have to start flying early. 
  • There are plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too; gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages - rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement.
  • Behind the bar is Steve, a clumsy, almost heroically inept young oik.
  • It's a common theme in movies, the American who purges bad feelings by facing danger head on, and director Joe Johnston is clumsy with it.
  • At times it seemed like a clumsy dance routine, choreographed for hippopotami like the sequence in Fantasia. A NASTY DOSE OF DEATH
  • The photographs are of indifferent quality, the layout and design clumsy and amateurish.
  • Nevertheless so clumsy a beau, that thou seemest to me to owe thyself a double spite, making thy ungracefulness appear the more ungraceful, by thy remarkable tawdriness, when thou art out of mourning. Clarissa Harlowe
  • did a clumsy job
  • It is an attempt, and a clumsy attempt, to codify the present criminal law.
  • Ecosystems are delicate and complex, easily disrupted by clumsy interventions.
  • For a certain portion of the passengers had the unmistakable excursion air: the half-jocular manner towards each other, the local facetiousness which is so offensive to uninterested fellow-travelers, that male obsequiousness about ladies 'shawls and reticules, the clumsy pretense of gallantry with each other's wives, the anxiety about the company luggage and the company health. Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing
  • There were awkward speeches saying kind and clumsy things, gauche jokes and real fondness.
  • Although I am not a fan of the huge oversized glasses commonly employed, I am happy to see the quality of the glassware has increased immensely, with clumsy, shallow glass goblets being replaced by more appropriate crystal stems.
  • There were awkward speeches saying kind and clumsy things, gauche jokes and real fondness.
  • For more background on that, you should read the three posts I wrote back then, the last of which has enough pictures to give a sense of the whole concept without the effort of ploughing through my clumsy inarticulate prose.
  • The words fell out of his mouth in a clumsy, awkward fashion that instantly made him regret talking at all.
  • Much of the final stretch is a rather clumsy critique of'global capitalism '. Times, Sunday Times
  • In listening to these works with their clumsy blocks of tone, their eternal sunless complaining, their lack of humor where they would be humorous, their lack of passion where they would be profound, their sardonic and monotonous bourdon, one is perforce reminded of the photograph of Reger which his publishers place on the cover of their catalogue of his works, the photograph that shows something that is like a swollen, myopic beetle with thick lips and sullen expression crouching on an organ-bench. Musical Portraits Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers
  • But, as I said, I was in amaze, and the next I knew was the pang of the entering steel as this clumsy provincial ran me through and charged forward, bull-like, till his hilt bruised my side and I was borne backward. Chapter 11
  • But the protoceratops was a small dinosaur which walked on all fours and was likely to have been a clumsy creature with short legs and a long heavy body.
  • They must have been clumsy and difficult to manoeuvre as well.
  • Then a clumsy foot in a cow-leather boot or heavy wooden-pegged veldschoen would be thrust out, and the boy would be tripped up and go down, and the crowd would deliberately kick and trample the life out of him, and no one would be able to say how or by whom the thing had been done. The Dop Doctor
  • While he seemed to have an unpracticed grace, the chap was still clumsy to almost a point of impossibility.
  • They continued to press and could have had a second penalty when a clumsy tackle went unpunished.
  • These are often clumsy but they give the proceedings the virtue of unpredictability. Times, Sunday Times
  • These will not be numbered among the devotees of Waugh, and probably struggle with pompousness, may be cumbrous or even clumsy from time to time. If I Could Have a Conversation about It: Decline and Fall « Unknowing
  • But these clumsy attempts to prevent its publication only promoted the swift growth of interest in the book.
  • You clumsy oaf that's the second glass you've broken today!
  • It looked and felt so clumsy, so unwieldy, so…… artificial.
  • Pasión gitana por sangre española (Gypsy Passion for Spanish Blood), by Víctor M. Ánchel, an award-winning novella about a clumsy American vampire who becomes the ringleader of a gang of bumbling petty criminals in Andalucía. MIND MELD: Guide to International SF/F (Part I )
  • The action seemed a clumsy attempt to topple the Janata Dal government.
  • You clumsy oaf that's the second glass you've broken today!
  • Children with autism and Asperger's syndrome tend to be clumsy and to struggle with games lessons at school.
  • The return to the ship involves a _bloto_ across the bay, with many misgivings as to the seaworthy capacities of the clumsy craft, but four bamboo safety-poles, fastened by forked sticks to the sides of the hollowed log, suffice to steady it enough to avoid capsizal. Through the Malay Archipelago
  • Last month, Mr. Najib acknowledged that a clumsy attempt to censor an article about political protests in the Economist magazine with black felt-tip pen "made more news than the actual story. Cartoonist Wants Kuala Lumpur to Lift Book Ban
  • An over-clumsy turn of the flame adjuster towards the low heat setting can douse the flame.
  • So clumsy, so unmilitary, so patently allergic to soldierly duty except where it kept him with his beloved wireles set. IN LOVE AND WAR
  • This is either a clumsy attempt to be generous or wishful thinking of a quite deluded kind. Times, Sunday Times
  • There's only so much space for awkward dialogue and clumsy exposition when you have to cram a movie full of fight scenes.
  • Your sword must strike purposefully, not just clumsy swipes.
  • He has been a clumsy, flatfooted and ponderous at times. Times, Sunday Times
  • A wonderful defensive move which prevents ... b5 even though in other respects the rook lands on a rather clumsy square.
  • Simple self promotion is jarring, far too revealing and far too blunt, gauche, clumsy, and vulgar.
  • So long as the tricycle was a crude and clumsy machine, there was no chance of cycling becoming a part, as it almost is and certainly soon will be, of our national life. Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884
  • clumsy fingers
  • I hate to tell you this dearie, but Cody's always been a bit of a clumsy klutz.
  • But without this, it can look incredibly awkward and clumsy. The Sun
  • It was a clumsy amateur agent who was foolish enough to allow himself to be detected.
  • These will not be numbered among the devotees of Waugh, and probably struggle with pompousness, may be cumbrous or even clumsy from time to time. If I Could Have a Conversation about It: Decline and Fall « Unknowing
  • Had the clumsy wheel-chair, heavy with its own momentum, sailed into space like one of those ridiculous flying contraptions in a James Bond film, the little manikin secure among his gadgets, ready to pull the lever and sport wings? She Closed Her Eyes
  • And Jane was described as a real woman, with nothing clumsy about her character and as a genuine heroine unlike today's film stars and models.
  • A clumsy addition will detract from its appearance, but a modern glass extension at ground level or a viewing platform at the top could provide an exciting contrast to the stone facade and give you plenty of light.
  • A translation that is clumsy or stilted will scream its presence. Times, Sunday Times
  • Because of the setting, a rich assortment of characters is able to move in and out without clumsy contrivance. Times, Sunday Times
  • Writing is downgraded as if it is a clumsy substitute for more efficient means of preserving data and the findings or conclusions.
  • I was far too clumsy in social situations to attempt a visit, not even to apologize for something that had been plaguing me with guilt all day.
  • Eventually, I made our excuses and took her home, worried that I had ruined yet another woman's life with my clumsy social skills.
  • Black Matt and Tom Morrisey merely held on to each other and lifted their clumsy-booted feet in what seemed a grotesque, elephantine dance. Chapter 4
  • Evelyn wiled away her days, performing odd tasks for Mrs. Watts, and practicing her needlepoint with her neighbor, Lindsey, as Lindsey's mother kept a close eye on her clumsy stitching.
  • But that's merely the beginning of this ill-conceived, ill-timed and epically copy-cattish endeavor, from the cover - a clumsy, solipsistic shot of a woman in a WSJ paper dress (a strange and otherwise un-referenced homage to the 1960s) - to the head-scratching organizing principle of the TOC. Adam Hanft: I.O.A. -- The Wall Street Journal Magazine is Irrelevant On Arrival
  • I like thin gloves so I put 2 pair inside of each other and this layer affect works very well and then I don't have the big thick, bulky, clumsy gloves that make it harder to work with and if they are to thick then you have issues getting your finger in your trigger guard. Ive tried many gloves but i havent found a pair that will keep my hands warm for hunting and fishing in the winter do you guys h
  • Doris and Nana appear out of nowhere and act as little more than clumsy devices to move the plot along and reveal the truth behind mysteries set up elsewhere.
  • Billings was a clumsy, maladroit man, his fingers astonishingly competent with a wireless set, his other limbs ungainly and shambling. IN LOVE AND WAR
  • There is nothing, indeed, that makes the judicious grieve more than maladroit flattery, which is as embarrassing to the victim as the clumsy caresses of the horse in the fable who tried to emulate the dog's gambols about his master.
  • This has been an extremely clumsy maladroit approach on the part of the US economic team.
  • Besides these -- often crude and clumsy -- romances they possessed what may be called "theosophic" treatises and revelations of a highly mystical character. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI
  • Much of the gig is devoted to his clumsy attempts at relationships and the pain of being eternally single. The Sun
  • The clumsy frame-up attempt was as stupid as it was shortsighted.
  • He is so clumsy that he can't even push the small cart ahead.
  • Even the original Vulcan, as connoisseurs of Roman mythology will remember, was a clumsy bore, which is one reason his wife Venus cuckolded him with the more mobile Mars.
  • Alex, with his clumsy manners, his awkward yet almost sweet behavior… and his captivating personality.
  • When the shot broke, I tried to run the bolt quickly and prepare for a follow up, as we had practiced, but my hands were suddenly awkward and clumsy.
  • Tim was a clumsy boy, always bumping into the furniture.
  • I am a clumsy beginner and in the hut first a greenfinch escapes from my grip, and then a sedge warbler, both hurtling toward the windows. A Year on the Wing
  • I felt a blush spread over my face - he must think I was awfully clumsy.
  • This is a superb Figma action figure of the star of the series, Yui-chan, who combines the classic anime tropes of dojikko (cute clumsy girl) with boke (kind of ditzy) but always eager to entertain us. Recently updated products at JBOX.com
  • Donna turned as Ryker came at her, avoiding his clumsy attempts to grab her.
  • There were tales of how some of the men were held captive, stuck in boxes with holes in their sides, Fralgon offspring teasing with their clumsy pincers. FOOD ON THE TABLE • by Anitha Murthy
  • It is a small, harp-shaped instrument on legs, exceedingly coarse and clumsy in its construction, -- the case rough and unpolished, the legs like those of a kitchen table, with wooden castors such as were formerly used in the construction of cheap bedsteads of the "trundle" variety. The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867.
  • The first mobile phones were heavy and clumsy to use, but nowadays they are much easier to handle.
  • On the other hand ...Rome, clumsy person riding the many regular riders in the battle to lose balance, and fell from his horse, which is usually very dangerous and sometimes fatal.
  • The term tailor is locally employed for a bungler, a botcher, or a clumsy fellow, and these meanings have been suggested in the passage quoted. VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XII No 3
  • He is so clumsy that he can't even push the small cart ahead.
  • While I'm more than a little nervous that "naive" is code for "adorkably clumsy," I'm crossing my fingers that the agent Bynes replaced us with knows what he or she is doing. Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch
  • It happened otherwise, however; for, after the exchange of a few indistinct words, they were antonished when they heard the noise of the unbolting and unbarring of the gates of the inn, and presently after the footsteps of men upon the stairs; and the landlord entering, with an appearance of clumsy courtesy, prayed those assembled to make room for an honored guest, who came, though late, to add to their numbers. Anne of Geierstein
  • Instead, an old wooden pane was hung on its metal gate and bore the company's name in clumsy handwriting -- New Asia Strong Biochemical LTD. Xiu Min Li: "Look for Self-Help in Time of Disaster, Not the Party"
  • He looked up, and an apology for his clumsy abstraction died on his lips. THE CURSE OF CHALION
  • When in flight, females stayed close to the ground and always appeared clumsy and overladen.
  • The execution is sometimes clumsy and story threads occasionally fumble about but the sheer determination to go further with the premise, pushing beyond the barricades of mediocrity and aspire for at least some of the weightiness of the source material, that kind of relentlessness ultimately made it a success. Row Three » Review: Blindness - Where Cinema is more than just $100 Million productions
  • Tacking on vibraphones to clumsy, endlessly repetitive garage rock does nothing but emphasize the complete lack of original ideas that plagues this album.
  • Alma understood that he had power over her, power delegated to him by Joshua Seigl, and so she smiled at him with clumsy coquetry. THE TATTOOED GIRL
  • This system works quite well, but it's a bit clumsy, needing as it does harness templates to call the preprocessed ones and smearing application concepts Book and Author across two of its layers. Site Home
  • IOW, What kind of meanie makes fun of somebody for being clumsy? Firedoglake » Does Fred Hiatt Even Read the Washington Post?
  • Clumsy as were their galliots, they were among the first to brave the mysterious terrors of unknown seas and oceans.
  • Their movements are clumsy, but they can open doors and remove objects from closets and drawers.
  • It was chaos, but an intricately organized chaos, and the first heaps of cargo were already being trundled off to dockside and the broad-beamed, clumsy-looking riverboats awaiting them.
  • In her mind she compared them with the woman who poured the tea, and there uprose in contrast the gourds and pannikins of the Toyaat village and the clumsy mugs of Twenty Mile, to which she likened herself. THE STORY OF JEES UCK
  • It is the clumsy ways of nature and the evolutionary process. Times, Sunday Times
  • a clumsy and wasteful process
  • Then the ministry came under attack for its clumsy handling of huge bond-trading losses at the New York branch of Daiwa Bank.
  • a clumsy thing compared to the finesse of a neatly-turned French calembour. The Days Before Yesterday
  • Their well-finished gatefold digipaks make the old jewel boxes seem cheap and clumsy while getting closer to the feel of the original 12-inch LPs.
  • The smooth movers usually have to dance with clumsy celebrities. The Sun
  • So what is the standard of competence and performance that we implicitly have in mind when we deploy the standards of "adroit" and "clumsy" when it comes to physical performances? Archive 2009-05-01
  • But without this, it can look incredibly awkward and clumsy. The Sun
  • Miss Johnson looked at me as if seeing me for the first time; giving a little jump, she tweeted, ‘Oh, clumsy me.’
  • She has rendered the novel in the simple present to get over the problem of switching tenses which sounds alright in Tamil but clumsy in English.
  • When scientific probabilities collide with the political need for certainties, the results are always clumsy. Times, Sunday Times
  • And, in the recollection of the father's clumsy attempt to play the adagio from Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata, our sympathy for him is short-circuited by the daughter's memory of her own laughter.
  • That is, I am insensitive, brutal, clumsy and a big oaf.
  • Nam-Bok was ever clumsy at the paddle," she maundered reminiscently, shading the sun from her eyes and staring across the silver-spilled water. Nam-Bok, the Unveracious
  • They are all found in botanical works under long, clumsy, Latin appellations, very little fitted for every-day uses, just like the plants of our gardens, half of which are only known by long-winded Latin polysyllables, which timid people are afraid to pronounce. Rural Hours
  • His clumsy attempt to distract her attention was all the warning she needed.
  • It would be a brave man who would predict that such a process will always remain clumsy, slow, and faulty in detail. As We May Think
  • When you have to say it out loud, you realise what's clumsy and awkward. Times, Sunday Times
  • Much of the final stretch is a rather clumsy critique of'global capitalism '. Times, Sunday Times
  • Then the ministry came under attack for its clumsy handling of huge bond-trading losses at the New York branch of Daiwa Bank.
  • It was usually a clumsy fumble under the sheets. The Sun
  • With his left arm he gave Billie a clumsy and rather inebriated embrace, and tipped his glass to Albert.
  • So, trapped in the musty atmosphere of planet earth, they appear clumsy and fragile.
  • * gloss for "looby": a clumsy lout, a foolish person. Giles Slade: Nothin' From Nothin' Leaves Nothin': Levi Johnston at 19
  • I can't picture him skiing. He's so clumsy!
  • A soldier went down in a flash of steel as he neatly riposted his clumsy strike.
  • the clumsy customer turned over the vase
  • On the contrary, it usually, when put into plain English, gives us only the name -- often a clumsy and unpronounceable German one -- of some obscure friend of the author, or, as is not unfrequently the case, some lordly patron for whom your closet-naturalist entertains a flunkeyish regard, and avails himself of this means of making it known to his Maecenas. The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North
  • Some mended their saddles, or were wiping out an old carbine or a clumsy escopette. The Rifle Rangers
  • Last year I was daft enough to get the guy to help me with the counter top and the clumsy fellow managed to gouge a great chunk out of the kitchen wall.
  • But in the main it was hard work, and at the end of an hour Joe's back was aching from the unaccustomed strain, and his fingers were cut and bleeding from his clumsy handling of the sharp-edged oysters. Chapter XIV
  • Here's an alternative to clumsy, heavy snow chains.
  • These are heavy, clumsy, ungainly things. Times, Sunday Times
  • Also, sometimes I am clumsy and drop things or bump into furniture.
  • One expects really big heavyweights to be lumbering creatures, powerful but as clumsy as the larger dinosaurs. Times, Sunday Times
  • Meanwhile some clumsy clot seems to have copied and pasted from last year's invitations.
  • But without this, it can look incredibly awkward and clumsy. The Sun
  • I made a clumsy proposal of marriage. Times, Sunday Times
  • In 2007 her business secured investment from a leading underwear manufacturer but that year she found herself becoming increasingly clumsy and forgetful. Times, Sunday Times
  • People who have spent second homes on their smiles don't like to eat awkward or clumsy things. Times, Sunday Times
  • Rishabh Kumar/ The Wall Street Journal A scene from the puppet show 'Oh Rats!' featuring an escapologist duck, a magician's clumsy assistant and a magic hat, at the Ishara Puppet Festival 2012, Thursday. International Puppet Festival
  • Such a clumsy oaf should never be allowed to dance, much less with such energy.
  • Yet Mum herself was no less clumsy. Seminary Boy
  • Unfortunately, I was still very clumsy behind the wheel of the jeep.
  • Cranky and carnaptious, he vented his spleen in satires and clumsy lampoons.
  • I misdealt, as was only natural, when I knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for a stupid, clumsy laboring – boy. Great Expectations
  • While Broadway audiences may have found such bait-and-switch tactics to be titillating back in the benighted days of "Victor/Victoria," they're now more than capable of taking homosexuality straight, and the clumsy coyness with which Messrs. 'Clear Day,' Muddled Effort
  • Personally, I am hyposensitive to my position and movement in space, which makes me clumsy and made it difficult for me to learn how to drive (though computer games like Tetris were helpful for learning the required hand-eye coordination). Reports from a Resident Alien
  • If the skis are too long, they will be clumsy and awkward.
  • He attributes this to their clumsy numeration system, a hybrid of the Babylonian sexagesimal system and an additive system in which each letter of the Greek alphabet stood for one value.
  • It gets a bit clumsy showing the generational relationships with brackets - a tree diagram gives a clearer picture as the generations continue.
  • The tone of the _bass_ is much heavier and the instrument itself is much more clumsy to handle than the other members of the group, hence it is almost never used as a solo instrument but it is invaluable for reinforcing the bass part in orchestral music. Music Notation and Terminology
  • Mandarins, clumsy in the weak mortar lightship, stumbled against the waistband as if it were just then being discovered, while other, livelier, sours, shouted and slapped the castanet during spontaneous bid-quoting contingencies and then became very quintet and watchful. Farouche
  • There were awkward speeches saying kind and clumsy things, gauche jokes and real fondness. Times, Sunday Times
  • The show is a clumsy blend of news and entertainment.
  • There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. The War of The Worlds
  • These points became more and more worthy of note as the war went on, and the North, after its first clumsy struggles, went to work with more earnestness, made a real blockade, and by enormous levies from a worthless population which it was only too glad to expend, measured its military purse, so to speak, against that of the South, but to a large extent gave counters for sovereigns. London: Saturday, December 26, 1863
  • At first her movements were clumsy, but after a couple of gentle tugs it was like standing on plush carpeting.
  • The public sector borrowing figures, released just three hours before George Osborne took to his feet in the House of Commons, underlined why that idea would have been almost as clumsy as the expression dreamt up to describe it. Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
  • So, trapped in the musty atmosphere of planet earth, they appear clumsy and fragile.
  • Cash is so awkward and clumsy. Times, Sunday Times
  • His downfall came only when he made a clumsy and inept attempt to forge her will, to claim her legacy for himself.

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