homely

1. 1.

   lacking in physical beauty or proportion

   “a homely child”

   “several of the buildings were downright homely”

   “a plain girl with a freckled face”

   Synonymsplain

   Similarunattractive
2. 2.

   having a feeling of home; cozy and comfortable

   “the homely everyday atmosphere”

   “a homey little inn”

   Synonymshomelikehomeyhomy

   Similarcomfortable
3. 3.

   plain and unpretentious

   “homely truths”

   “letters to his son full of homely advice”

   “homely fare”

   Similarplain
4. 4.

   without artificial refinement or elegance

   “plain homely furniture”

   “homely manners”

   Similarinelegant

Other forms of homely

comparative or superlative

homelier

comparative or superlative

homeliest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about homely

What does homely mean?

homely means "lacking in physical beauty or proportion". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in homely?

homely has 2 syllables: home-ly. The stress falls on "home". In IPA it is /ˈhoʊmli/.

What is another word for homely?

Close synonyms include plain, homelike, homey, homy. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is homely a common word?

homely is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.