ugly [ME] The word ugly came into English in the 13th century from Old Norse uggligr ‘to be dreaded’, and had a stronger meaning than it does now, ‘frightful or horrible’. In Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale the ‘ugly duckling’ is a cygnet hatched by a duck that is jeered at until it turns into a graceful swan. The tale appeared in English in a translation of 1846, and ugly duckling was in use for people by the late 19th century. In Cinderella, the heroine has two ugly and unpleasant stepsisters who make her work in the kitchen. Since the late 19th century an ugly sister has been an unattractive person or thing or an undesirable counterpart. More recent is the ugly American, the American who behaves offensively abroad. The original context of the phrase is that of Americans who adversely affect the lives of the people they live among in southeast Asia. It comes from the title of a 1958 book by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, which was released as a film starring Marlon Brando in 1963.