Etymologically
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ungrateful

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Pronunciation

  • /ʌnˈɡɹeɪtfəl/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English un- + grateful.[2][3][4][5][6] Grateful is formed from the obsolete adjective grate, agreeable, pleasant, which is from Latin grātus (“pleasing”),[2] and Etymonline calls grateful a rare, irregular case of an adjective made with -ful from another adjective.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not feeling or showing gratitude: 1553, in J. Brende's translation of Quintus Curtius.[3] Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1533,[5] Etymonline to the 1550s and Dictionary.com to 1545–55.[2][6]

Semantic evolution

From people, the word spread to actions that show a lack of gratitude (before 1586, in Sidney's Arcadia).[3][2] By transfer it described soil or trees that give no return for cultivation, from 1681 in Dryden;[3][4] Johnson (1755) gave both senses, "making no returns, or making ill returns for kindness" and "making no returns for culture".[7] The Mapping Metaphor project links the field of gratitude with that of geological features from the early 17th century.[8] A second line of meaning, "unpleasant, disagreeable", the opposite of grateful in its old sense "pleasing to the mind",[2] is recorded from 1596, and was applied to tastes and smells from 1628 and to sounds from 1659.[3][4] Merriam-Webster still lists the sense "distasteful".[5]

Timeline

  • 1553 – not feeling or showing gratitude.[3] Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1533.[5]
  • before 1586 – of actions, showing a lack of gratitude.[3]
  • 1596 – unpleasant, disagreeable.[3]
  • 1628 – of a taste or smell, unpleasant.[3]
  • 1659 – of sounds, unpleasant.[3]
  • 1681 – of soil or trees, not responding to cultivation.[3]
  • 1755 – Johnson defines it as making no returns for kindness, or for cultivation.[7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Not feeling or showing gratitude; thankless: He was too ungrateful to thank the neighbours who had fed his cat.[9][5][3]
  2. Unpleasant or unrewarding; thankless or disagreeable: an ungrateful chore.[9][5][4]
  3. (archaic) Of soil: not responding to cultivation.[5][4][9]

Word family

  • ungratefully
  • ungratefulness

Usage notes

In 2017 Grammarphobia discussed the use of ungrateful to condemn wealthy African-American athletes who knelt in protest against police brutality, after Jelani Cobb wrote in the New Yorker that it was "the new uppity".[10]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  8. ^ Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, University of Glasgow, mappingmetaphor.arts.gla.ac.uk
  9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  10. ^ O'Conner, Patricia T.; Kellerman, Stewart, The Grammarphobia Blog, grammarphobia.com, p. "Is ‘ungrateful’ the new ‘uppity’?", 6 October 2017