Nondescript

/ˈnɒndɪskɹɪpt/ · adjective

Meaning

(biology, now rare) Not described (in the academic literature)..

Definitions by Sense

1. (biology, now rare) Not described (in the academic literature).
2. Without distinguishing qualities or characteristics.
3. (chiefly biology) A species or other type of creature that has not been previously described or identified.
4. An undistinguished, unexceptional person or thing.
5. (UK) An unmarked police car.

Example Sentences

He drove a nondescript silver sedan.

There was, besides, a Scots mason, known from his favourite dish as "Irish Stew," three or four nondescript Scots, a fine young Irishman, O'Reilly, and a pair of young men who deserve a special word of condemnation.

In 1919, demobilisation specials from Purfleet, Essex, to the North, usually made up of nondescript, almost paintless or grey stock which had seen long wartime service, chalked with slogans, were worked through by way of Bromley and the North London line […].

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.

The plaque, of light-blue hue (a tone favoured by the Wiltshire market town's civic society), can be found on a nondescript structure just outside the station.

Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical non-descript.

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts.

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.

Synonyms for nondescript

Antonyms for nondescript

Related Words

Word Forms

• more nondescript
• most nondescript
• non-descript
• nondescripts

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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