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Sunday January 17, 2010

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maladroit [mal-uh-DROYT]

adjective

1. Lacking adroitness; clumsy; awkward; unskillful.

• Once he survived the parliamentary crisis, Mr. Harper did two things that stabilized the government. First, he unveiled a huge stimulus program that, unlike his maladroit efforts in the fall of 2008, responded to the political requirement and economic need to inject public money into a tottering economy.
  Jeffrey Simpson, "It was a very good year for the Prime Minister", The Globe and Mail, Dec 18, 2009
• Immigration is likely to play a central role in the forthcoming general election, with Gordon Brown recently stepping up his rhetoric on "British jobs for British workers" and Alan Johnson, the home secretary, admitting that the government had been "maladroit" in addressing dom-estic fears on the issue.
  James Boxell, "Signs of growth turn jobseekers' tide", Financial Times, Nov 27, 2009
• While priming the piece, she is even maladroit enough to spill a quantity of the powder-though evidently not from any lack of practice or dexterity.
  Mayne Reid (1818 - 1883) An Irish-American novelist. The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness

Origin of the Word

Maladroit, approximately 1670, from mal- prefix meaning "bad, badly, ill," from French, from Old French mal "evil, ill, wrong, wrongly," + adroit from French phrase a droit "according to right."