In a recent installment here, I mentioned the word homely . I said it “is one of those words that have two different, almost opposite meanings. On the one hand, it means easygoing, relaxed, natural; on the other, it means coarse, unrefined, ugly.”

What does it mean when someone calls you homely?

Homely describes someone who's plain or unattractive, like your homely Aunt Agnes or her squish-faced bulldog. The adjective homely is a slightly more gentle word than ugly, with a meaning closer to "plain" than "hideous." It's almost always used to describe a less-than-attractive person, and occasionally an animal.

When a woman is homely?

2 adj If you describe a woman as homely, you mean that she has a warm, comforting manner and looks like someone who would enjoy being at home and running a family.