unflattering

/ənˈflæɾerɪŋ/

/ənˈflæterɪŋ/

Other forms: unflatteringly

Unflattering things make you look bad, like an unflattering photograph your dad takes while you're eating a cheeseburger or the unflattering review of your band's first concert.

If the light is unflattering, it'll make people look tired or pale, or cast strange shadows that cause pictures you take of them to look terrible. An unflattering movie review makes the film sound boring or badly acted. When something is flattering, it compliments someone, or shows a person or a thing in its very best light, from the Old French root flater, "caress." Add the "not" prefix un-, and you get unflattering.

Definitions of unflattering

1. adjective

   showing or representing unfavorably
   “an unflattering portrait”

   synonyms: uncomplimentary

   antonyms:

   flattering

   showing or representing to advantage

   adulatory

   obsequiously complimentary

   becoming

   displaying or setting off to best advantage

   ingratiating, ingratiatory, insinuating

   calculated to please or gain favor