unwieldy
/ˌʌnˈwɪəl.di/adjective
unwieldy is spelled U-N-W-I-E-L-D-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is unwieldly: about 90 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Unwieldy is an adjective meaning “Difficult to carry, handle, manage or operate because of its size, weight, shape or complexity”.
How many letters and syllables are in unwieldy?
| Letters | 8: U-N-W-I-E-L-D-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 36,565th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, unwieldly, about 90 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell unwieldy?
Unwieldy is spelled U-N-W-I-E-L-D-Y. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for unwieldy in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is unwieldy?
Unwieldy appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 36,565th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce unwieldy?
- UK /ˌʌnˈwɪəl.di/
Unwieldy has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-unwieldy.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of unwieldy
- more unwieldy comparative
- most unwieldy superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does unwieldy mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
obsoleteLacking strength; weak.
- 2
obsoleteUngraceful in movement.
- 3
Difficult to carry, handle, manage or operate because of its size, weight, shape or complexity.
- 4
Badly managed or operated.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Unwieldy in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense difficult to carry, handle, manage or operate:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | encombrant, lourd, peu maniable |
| German | unhandlich, schwerfällig, sperrig, klobig |
| Portuguese | imanejável, imanuseável |
| Spanish | farragoso |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does unwieldy come from?
From Middle English unweldy, equivalent to un- + wieldy. Cognate with Old Frisian unweldich, unweldech (“having no power, involuntary”), Middle Dutch onweldich (“having no control or mastery over”), Middle Low German unweldich (“unwieldy”). Compare also Old High German unwaltīg (“powerless”), whence Middle High German unwaltic, German ungewaltig (“powerless, unmighty”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).