Ill-fitting means the wrong size — hanging loose in one place, pinching in another. A borrowed suit on a boy at a funeral.
Clothes take the word most often: an ill-fitting jacket, ill-fitting shoes, an ill-fitting uniform that tells you nobody was measured. It works on anything made to fit, though — an ill-fitting lid, an ill-fitting window that lets the draught in, ill-fitting dentures. Writers also use it for things that do not belong together, as in an ill-fitting metaphor. Note the ill- prefix, which means badly and gives English a useful little family alongside ill-judged and ill-advised.
1adjectiveill-fittingNot the right size or shape for what it covers.
“He wore an ill-fitting jacket borrowed from his brother.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 10 of A Man Called Ove.
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