Ugliness
Ugliness is a property of physical things that are not nice to look at. This word is commonly used in when talking about someone's appearance. The opposite of ugliness is beauty. Someone who discriminates against ugly is called a lookist or cacophobe.
Ugliness can be a matter of opinion. Two people can look at the same object and one may think it is beautiful and the other may think it is ugly. This is shown in the popular phrase Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Although ugly usually means "a lack of physical beauty", the property of ugliness may also be used to describe other things such as music, literature, or human behavior. The word can also be used as an insult, even if the person does not think the person they are talking about is ugly.
Ugliness in popular culture
[change | change source]- One of the most well-known examples of "ugly" in popular culture is the story The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen. The moral of this story is that ugliness is a matter of opinion.
- Movies with ugly in the title include Coyote Ugly (based on New York's Coyote Ugly Saloon), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
- Ugly dolls and troll dolls are unique because of their ugliness.
- The Star Trek episode "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" had an alien race called the Medusans, who were so ugly that any human who sees one without protection would be driven insane.
- Ugly Betty is the name of a television series on ABC that started in 2006.