How to Use homely in a Sentence

homely

adjective
  • She has a homely face.
  • He's a bit homely but nice.
  • The nightingale glanced at her small and homely child in mild surprise, as did the page.
    — Hazlitt, 19 Nov. 2025
  • Meatloaf can be a a homely dish, but give your next recipe a makeover by baking it in a Bundt pan.
    — Paul Stephen, San Antonio Express-News, 20 June 2018
  • Peeling them was a struggle, and they were left looking pockmarked and homely.
    — Washington Post, 23 Sep. 2019
  • An Uber dropped me off in front of a homely apartment complex in the southeast part of the city.
    — Brian Merchant, Harper's magazine, 31 Dec. 2019
  • Pickles and relishes, so much a part of our heritage, have given a lift to many a homely meal.
    — Bill St. John, The Denver Post, 21 Aug. 2019
  • Firth wasn't the only one sweating over the homely masterpiece.
    — Ruth Kinane, EW.com, 17 Nov. 2020
  • Drawn in by his star power, many women flocked toward the homely and married slugger.
    — Alice George, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Dec. 2019
  • It's made of solid brass because life's too short for homely plastic watering cans.
    — Leanne Potts, Better Homes & Gardens, 2 Dec. 2021
  • Hampton Court—a homely palace, like a kitchen garden for Versailles.
    — Mavis Gallant, The New Yorker, 14 Aug. 2022
  • Like that terrible, homely, orange curly-haired nurse, with orange polyester and bad glasses.
    — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 26 Oct. 2024
  • Her new homely passageway features a doormat, letterbox, a wreath made up of leaves and a plant.
    — George Monastiriakos, Newsweek, 30 Dec. 2024
  • Powell first thought the homely wooden figurines – a man and a woman – were put in his mailbox by mistake.
    — Laura Colvin, USA TODAY, 13 Apr. 2023
  • Sartore treats all creatures—great and small, handsome and homely—with reverence.
    — Elizabeth Kolbert, National Geographic, 25 Sep. 2019
  • These homely delights, Risbridger asserts, will sustain us through dark times.
    — Jennifer Reese, Washington Post, 3 Aug. 2022
  • Part therapy, part self-expression, our homely obsession with crafts is poised to take over the world.
    — Michael Bierut, New York Times, 8 Jan. 2018
  • The most common of them, cerium, ranks 25th in abundance in the earth’s crust, one place ahead of homely copper.
    — Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Discover Magazine, 21 Sep. 2011
  • In the English basement, Bergman and Pond turned a homely kitchen into one that would suit two chefs.
    — Curbed, 17 Jan. 2024
  • And fans trooped in by the tens of thousands in their woolies and long johns, waving their homely orange towels, electric and ready to celebrate.
    — Michael Powell, New York Times, 8 Apr. 2016
  • The building is a homely 1970's office tower clad in concrete.
    — Chronicle Staff Report, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 Apr. 2018
  • Still, the 45-year-old star perfectly demonstrates how summer outfits don't always have to be so homely or cutesy.
    — Barry Samaha, Harper's BAZAAR, 15 July 2020
  • The colour palette of petrol-blue, canary yellow and bright orange adds to this homely vibe and feels at once interesting and welcoming.
    — Angelina Villa-Clarke, Forbes, 13 Feb. 2024
  • Theodosia seemed one of those maimed or homely people who—feeling themselves unimprovable—make a militant point of glaring you down.
    — Allan Gurganus, The New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2020
  • The Prius, while a game-changer at the time of its debut, has often been criticized by reviewers for its homely design.
    — Sean McLain, WSJ, 16 Nov. 2022
  • The Viking cruise ships provide a wide range of discrete 'sitting room' environments to give the sense of being in a more homely setting.
    — Mark Ellwood, Condé Nast Traveler, 17 Oct. 2019
  • Some of us members of the electorate feel like homely heiresses being courted by a motley bevy of suitors and tasked with figuring out who the fortune-hunters are.
    — Helaine Williams, Arkansas Online, 6 Nov. 2022
  • The look is soft, opaque at times, doing away with hi-def graphics for something more childlike, homely and calm — a video game that will likely inspire art that will grace many a parent’s fridge.
    — Todd Martens Game Critic, Los Angeles Times, 30 Jan. 2022
  • Over-collars with homely top-stitching details look like something out of The Scarlet Letter.
    — Laird Borrelli-Persson, Vogue, 16 Feb. 2024
  • With pale, irregular surfaces dotted with black bits of char, the homely slabs aren’t much to look at, but the first bite packs a big smoky punch that only grows with each subsequent chew.
    — Robert F. Moss, Southern Living, 17 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'homely.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: