Word Entry - A Jury of Her Peers

1. "The county attorney was looking at the cupboard- a peculiar,ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the upper part of it being built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard."

2. My guess is that ungainly could mean some quality that takes away from the attractiveness of something. Maybe ungainly means to describe the cupboard as very ugly.

3: Dictionary.com gives the definition of this word as something awkward or not graceful.

4: So after finding the definition of this word I can understand and see that it now makes better sense with the end of the sentence. It's meant to describe that the cupboard is not necessarily ugly, (it later says that it is almost attractive) but it was just an oddly placed or awkward looking cupboard.