🔊 Not pleasant sound 🎵 No music talent

unmusical

1 5.3

Not able to sing or play music well

adjective
/ʌnˈmjuːzɪkəl/

: an musical

Whether Castells is hostile to religion or simply "religiously unmusical" need not concern us here.

Examples

In the early days, the weaknesses of the Suzuki method were seen by skeptics to be the inability of students to read music and their unmusical, robot-like playing.

Academic text (1996)
For a man so seemingly unmusical, he sang them surprisingly well.

Academic text (2000)
Although she loves to dance, she admits she is unmusical and cannot carry a tune.
Despite enjoying live performances, he felt unmusical when it came to singing along.
His friends often joked that he was unmusical, as he struggled to keep rhythm during karaoke nights.

Synonyms

tone-deaf

vsunmusical

1 7.0

Unable to hear or sing the right notes in music

refers to general low interest or talent, not specific pitch inability

nonmusical

vsunmusical

4.2

A person who is not interested in or good at music

uses a different negative prefix but keeps identical meaning

musicless

vsunmusical

7.5

Not able to sing, play, keep a steady rhythm, or enjoy music

covers general lack of interest or talent rather than specific rhythm issues

Antonyms

musical

190 2.2

Being naturally talented at playing music

How Musical

gifted

5 3.5

musical

190 2.2

competent

114 3.6

unmusical

1 5.3

tone-deaf

1 7.0

Surface Forms

unmusical positive

unmusicaler comparative

unmusicalest superlative

Morphology

unmusical = musical (transparent) = un + music + al

The adjective is formed by negating 'musical' with the productive prefix un-, yielding 'not musical' (lacking musical ability or interest).

Etymology

Unmusical starts with un- 'not' and the rest is music, a word that comes from an old Greek word for 'songs and art'. So unmusical can mean 'not having skill or interest in music', for example someone who cannot sing or does not enjoy playing instruments.