Aukward

The aukward behaviour of Mr Jones on this occasion convinced her of the truth, without his giving her a direct answer to any of her questions; but she was not nice enough in her amours to be greatly concerned at the discovery.

the law always allows innuendos in informations which explain and tell what the defendant meant by them." (47) Indeed, argues the author of State Law, "a Libel in Hieroglyphicks, is as much a Libel, and as highly punishable, as an open Invective." For "if there be only a thin Veil, or aukward Disguise thrown over it, thro' which those who can see and observe may perceive the lurking Satyr within, a Court of Law will examine it narrowly, and judge of it according to the Intention of the Maker," an intention signaled by the rhetorical forms chosen by the author.

In her person, she is tall, raw-boned, aukward, flat-chested, and stooping; her complexion is sallow and freckled; her eyes are not grey, but greenish, like those of a cat, and generally inflamed; her hair is of a sandy, or rather dusty hue; her forehead low; her nose long, sharp, and towards the extremity, always red in cool weather; her lips skinny, her mouth extensive, her teeth straggling and loose, of various colours and conformation; and her long neck shriveled into a thousand wrinkles--In her temper, she is proud, stiff, vain, imperious, prying, malicious, greedy, and uncharitable.

No, I must marry some stiff aukward thing or other with an ugly face and a handsome Estate, that's certain: but whoever is ordain'd to make my Fortune, 'tis you onely that can make me happy.--Come, do it then.

"Vulcan with aukward grace his office plies,/And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the skies" (1.770-771).

On arrival in London, Humphrey reminds him, he was "a bashful great aukward Cub" (1.1.133).

Its result, the readers were told, was `grotesque', and the heroine herself hastened to add: `I felt excessively aukward (sic) in boots -- I assure you'.(26) All this was a tar cry indeed from the representations of female chevaliers and warriors earlier in the century, in which their success in passing as men and acting the role at ease had been repeated testimony to the permeability and instability of gender boundaries; success, moreover, which had been met by many contemporaries (like Garrick in his prologue to Percy) with appreciation, not disapprobation.

Burney transcribed samples of the Royall Consort from old partbooks, but they left him baffled and unimpressed--'one of the most dry, aukward, and unmeaning compositions I ever remember to have had the trouble of scoring', he wrote in 1789.

He was, writes Amory, "very tall and thin, an ungainly, aukward, white-faced man.