nondescript

English

Etymology

From non- + descript.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/
  • (US) IPA(key): /nɑndəsˈkɹɪpt/
  • (file)

Adjective

nondescript (comparative more nondescript, superlative most nondescript)

  1. (biology, now rare) Not described (in the academic literature); undescribed, unidentified.
    • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 6
      In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts.
  2. Without distinguishing qualities or characteristics; unexceptional.
    He drove a nondescript silver sedan.
    • 2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The Onion AV Club:
      We open in a grimy, fluorescent-lit military base somewhere in rural England, where the girl from the poster, Melanie (Sennia Nanua), is the star student in a class full of children who are wheeled into school—or at least, the nondescript concrete room that serves as a school—with their arms, legs, and foreheads bound to their wheelchairs by leather straps.

Translations

Noun

nondescript (plural nondescripts)

  1. An undistinguished, unexceptional person or thing.
  2. (Britain) An unmarked police car.
    • 1970, Peter Laurie, Scotland Yard: a study of the Metropolitan Police (page 118)
      By a nice British compromise, the enforcement car visible just then as a white spot on the television screen has nothing externally to show its police affiliation, but unlike the CID's nondescripts, carries two large policemen in uniform.

Anagrams

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