unkempt

Etymology

It is formed from English un- + kempt, literally "uncombed".^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The earlier form is Middle English unkembed, also unkemd and unkempt.^[7][8][3][9] Kempt was a past participle of kemben (“to comb”),^[7][8][10] from Old English cemban (“to comb”),^{[7][11][5][8]} from Proto-Germanic *kambijaną,^[1][8][5] a derivative of *kambaz (“comb”),^[6][1] the source of comb.^[6][8] Its cognates include Old Saxon kembian, Old High German kemben and Old Norse kemba.^[8] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary trace the family to Proto-Indo-European *ǵembʰ- (“tooth, nail”).^[5][12] The OED compares Middle Dutch ongekeympt, from 1477.^[2] Collins derives the word from Old English uncembed.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of hair, not combed, loose: before 1393, in Gower's Confessio Amantis, where Lucrece has "hire her hangende unkemd aboute".^[7][8] The spelling with -t appears in Lydgate's Fall of Princes, from before 1439: "his hed vnkempt".^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The old verb kemb began to give way to the new verb comb in the 14th century^[6] and is rare after the 15th,^[5] but its negative participle lived on, and it came to mean untidy rather than literally uncombed.^[14][5] From 1567 it was used of a person with uncombed hair and so of anyone scruffy.^[2] Spenser applied it to language in the Shepheardes Calender of 1579, "my rhimes been rugged and unkempt",^[15][2][8] and it was this line that Johnson quoted in 1755 when he marked the word as obsolete.^[15] In the 19th century it spread to a person's appearance (1838), manners (1846) and neglected places or things (1848, in Lowell).^[2] The positive kempt in its modern use is a back-formation from it.^[12][13][5]

Timeline

• before 1393 – unkemd, of hair, uncombed.^[7][8]
• before 1439 – the form vnkempt, of the head and hair.^[2][7]
• 1567 – of a person, having uncombed hair; scruffy.^[2]
• 1579 – of language or style, unrefined.^[2][8] Etymonline dates the word itself to the 1570s.^[5]
• 1838 – of a person's appearance, dishevelled.^[2]
• 1846 – of manners, uncouth.^[2]
• 1848 – of a place or thing, neglected and untidy.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of hair, not combed; dishevelled: unkempt curls falling over his collar.^[13][10][2]
2. Of a person or their appearance, scruffy or poorly groomed: a tired, unkempt traveller.^[13][10][2]
3. Of a place or thing, not kept in good order; neglected: an unkempt back garden.^[10][2]
4. (archaic) Of language or manners, unrefined or crude.^[13][2]

Word family

• unkemptly
• unkemptness

Related words

• kempt
• kemb
• comb
• uncombed

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
12. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ 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.