gaucherie
- noun
- /ɡoʊʃəˈri/
:
torpeza
- His social gaucherie during the formal dinner caused everyone to feel uncomfortable.
Examples
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I'd left a party that night because I knew I'd cry if there was one more reference made to my gaucherie, to the...
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Below me, I see the vague shape of the couch (itself covered with roses, another bit of gaucherie, no?) and the coffee table.
Fiction book (2002) -
This gaucherie won many a pained, unfriendly look for the King's young relation from the West.
Fiction book (1997) -
"I worked five long years for one woman, and she had the nerve to put me out" -- committed the double gaucherie of mentioning hard work and domestic troubles at the Trump Marina.
Academic text (2002) -
Yet she uses that same shyness and gaucherie to acquire as much information as she possibly can about Rebecca to transform herself into a Mrs. de Winter—no longer a child bride, but an angry woman ready to knock down the door to the forbidden room.
Academic text (2016) -
With this proviso against telling the truth firmly articulated, the narrator begins her reconstruction of the past: "I am very different from that self who drove to Manderley for the first time, hopeful and eager, handicapped by a rather desperate gaucherie and filled with an intense desire to please" (9).
Academic text (2016) -
She often felt embarrassed by her gaucherie, especially when she stumbled over her words at important events.
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Despite his intelligence, his gaucherie made it hard for him to connect with others in casual conversations.
Synonyms
1
3.6
Lack of skill or grace when moving, often causing trips
Awkward behaviour that shows little social skill
Clumsy, awkward actions that make other people feel uncomfortable
Clumsy movement or posture that looks uncomfortable
A clumsy, awkward way of moving or looking
A lack of smooth, polite movement or social behavior
Being rude and not polite to other people
Rude actions that show a lack of politeness
Rude actions that show bad manners and offend others
A way someone acts or looks that seems not proper in public
To act in an awkward, silly way that makes others feel embarrassed or annoyed
Antonyms
How Awkward
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Gaucherie comes from the French word gauche meaning 'left' and the ending -erie meaning 'a kind of thing'. Because people long ago thought the 'left' side was clumsy or odd, gaucherie came to mean 'awkward or tactless behavior', so you can remember it as a kind of social clumsiness.