uneven

adj
/ʌnˈivən/

Etymology

From Middle English uneven, from Old English unefen (“unequal, unlike, dissimilar, diverse, irregular”), equivalent to un- + even. Cognate with Dutch oneven (“unequal, uneven, odd”), German uneben (“uneven, rough, irregular, bumpy”).

  1. inherited from unefen — “unequal, unlike, dissimilar, diverse, irregular
  2. inherited from uneven

Definitions

  1. Of a surface, not even

    Of a surface, not even; covered with raised spots, pits and grooves.

  2. Not level or smooth.

  3. Not uniform.

    • I've spent hours on overcrowded trains, and time on ones which were almost empty, because the recovery [from COVID] has been uneven.
  4. + 3 more definitions
    1. Varying in quality.

      • Even white activists who lacked a thoroughgoing anti-racist consciousness or were uneven in their understanding saw unity in the struggle against all forms of oppression as key.
    2. Odd.

    3. To make uneven.

      • Initially it nestled among the dozens of Indian mounds that unevened the earth near the river until they were leveled to accommodate commerce.
      • First, of course, the war reduced the white male, mostly young adult, population by more than a quarter-million, unevening the sex ratio and connubial and other opportunities for women for perhaps a generation.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at uneven. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01uneven02spots03spot04texture05roughness06roughage07rough

A definitional loop anchored at uneven. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at uneven

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA