Thesaurus results for UNSKILLED

unskilled

adjective

as in inexperienced

lacking or showing a lack of expert skill an unskilled handling of the facial features in the portrait explains why it is attributed to "school of Velázquez" and not to the master himself

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in incompetent

lacking qualities (as knowledge, skill, or ability) required to do a job hired unskilled workers because they would work for lower wages

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of unskilled In contrast to many European countries, for instance, whose modern histories of immigration go back to the mid-twentieth century, Japan has not accepted generations of unskilled workers from poor, developing countries or adopted formal guest-worker programs. —

Gracia Liu-Farrer, Foreign Affairs, 18 Nov. 2025 No army in history seemed ever to have been more ragged and motley and mongrel and polyglot than the Continental, rich and poor, learned and illiterate, from boys to old men, skilled and unskilled, born all over the world, speaking dozens of languages, believing in different gods and in no god. —

Jill Lepore, New Yorker, 10 Nov. 2025 The network also reported female health workers saying that their newer colleagues were likely to be unskilled women who came from Taliban-loyal families. —

NPR, 14 Oct. 2025 Unfortunately, the rest of the roster is too big and unskilled, a downstream consequence of buying into the fiction that Davis is a power forward. —

John Hollinger, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for unskilled

Recent Examples of Synonyms for unskilled

Adjective

The Blackhawks understood that handing their defense to a group of young, inexperienced players would be a challenge after the trade deadline.

— Scott Powers, New York Times, 15 Apr. 2026
As New York Magazine reported last month, shifts are also crushingly long, the vast majority of managers are young and inexperienced, and contracts often end abruptly without any prior warning.

— Victor Tangermann, Futurism, 15 Apr. 2026