uncouth [OE] A word that originally meant ‘unknown’. For much of the history of uncouth, most people would not have used or understood its opposite, couth. This originally meant ‘known’ but was later only used in Scottish English, for ‘kind’ or ‘comfortable’. Uncouth, though, developed a fully independent life. It came to refer to unsophisticated language or style in the late 17th century, and then to uncultured or ill-mannered people or behaviour. In 1896 the English essayist and critic Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) was the first to use couth as a deliberate opposite of uncouth meaning ‘cultured, well-mannered’. Ungainly [E17th] developed in a similar way. There is a word gainly, but it has never been common and its original meaning, ‘suitable, fitting’, now occurs only in Scottish dialect. Gainly came from the old word gain, which was used especially in the senses ‘kindly’ and ‘convenient’, and is of Scandinavian origin.