unsubtle

adjectiveB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — subtle sits at #3,097neutral

Unsubtle means so obvious that nobody could miss the point. The hint that was really an instruction.

The word is a criticism, and it is usually aimed at an attempt at cleverness that failed: an unsubtle hint, an unsubtle piece of product placement, an unsubtle attempt to change the subject. That is the key to it — you only call something unsubtle if subtlety was being tried for. A thing that never pretended to be delicate is just blunt or direct. English also has the delightfully unhelpful about as subtle as a brick, which means the same thing with more enjoyment.

Definitions of unsubtle

1adjectiveunsubtleObvious and lacking any delicacy.B2
“He made an unsubtle attempt to look at his watch.”
synonyms: heavy-handed, blatant

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*tetḱ- — to create, produce; to cut, hew
Latin
subtīlis — of texture: delicate, fine; slender, thin; accurate, keen; having fine judgment; etc.
Old French
sotil
Middle French
soutil
Anglo-Norman
sotel
Middle English
sotil
English
subtle
English, today
unsubtle

Built from

subtil · Middle English — of a person, the mind, etc.: clever, ingenious, penetrating; cunning, sly; insidious; delicate, fine; not dense, light, thin; finely powdered; narrow, slender; etc.
sutil · Old French — of an object: skilfully designed or made; delicate, fine; slender, thin; of an intangible thing: difficult to understand; of a person: discerning, shrewd; devious, sly; etc.
sub · Latin — below, under
tēla · Latin — warp (threads running lengthwise in a loom); web

From un- + subtle. subtle The is derived from Middle English sotil, soubtil, subtil (“of a person, the mind, etc.: clever, ingenious, penetrating; cunning, sly; insidious; delicate, fine; not dense, light, thin; finely powdered; narrow, slender; etc.”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman sotel, subtil, sutil, Middle French soutil, subtil, sutil, and Old French sotil, soutil, subtil, sutil (“of an object: skilfully designed or made; delicate, fine; slender, thin; of an intangible thing: difficult to understand; of a person: discerning, shrewd; devious, sly; etc.”) (modern French subtil), from Latin subtīlis (“of texture: delicate, fine; slender, thin; accurate, keen; having fine judgment; etc.”), from sub (“below, under”) + tēla (“warp (threads running lengthwise in a loom); web”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European tetḱ- (“to create, produce; to cut, hew”), from teḱ- (“to beget, sire”)). The word displaced Old English smēag literally “creeping”. The modern and Middle English (and French) spellings with -b- are influenced by Latin subtīlis; the letter was probably never pronounced. The is derived from Middle English sotil, soubtil, subtil (“wise person; sophisticated people collectively”), from the adjective.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

unsubtle in the wild

The film was criticised for unusual accents and for unsubtle story telling while the soundtrack received positive reviews.
Everyone's Child
The episode received mixed reviews with criticism directed at the subject matter and the unsubtle nature of the presentation.
Symbiosis (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the direction and performances (particularly Dillon's) but criticized the portrayal of race relations as simplistic and unsubtle.
Crash (2004 film)
Giraldoni had a dark, resonant voice and a strong (if unsubtle) stage presence, according to contemporary descriptions of his performances.
Eugenio Giraldoni
Performance outdoors and before popular audiences probably constrained the music to be simple and unsubtle.
Carnival song

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the tēla family

subtle

unsubtle — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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