uncomfortable

From un- +‎ comfortable.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʌnˈkʌmf.tə.bəl/, /ʌnˈkʌm.fə.tə.bəl/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bəl/, /ʌnˈkʌmf.tɚ.bəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

uncomfortable (comparative more uncomfortable, superlative most uncomfortable)

1. Not comfortable; causing discomfort.

   The class squirmed and fidgeted in the uncomfortable new chairs.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.

   • 1953 July, Allen Rowley, “First Impressions of American Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 492:

     The coaches were filthy outside and did not appear to have been painted or washed for years. Inside there were uncomfortable seats covered with a cane-like material.

2. Experiencing discomfort.
3. Uneasy or anxious.

   Sharing a house with them made me uncomfortable.

4. Put off or disgusted.

Although the word uncomfortable looks (etymonically) like one of its senses could be synonymous with inconsolable, it does not have that sense; the absence of that sense is simply a lexical gap. In parallel, the same is true of comfortable and consolable, as well as comfortability and consolability.

• ill at ease

• comfortable
• ergonomic

• uncomfortableness
• uncomfortably