These words refer to actions lacking in skill or grace or to the faulty results of such actions. Clumsy indicates blundering or imprecise movement, a propensity for making mistakes, or to results that reflect these things; a clumsy walk; her clumsy attempt to match the colours of the original; a clumsy sweep of his hand that sent the vase toppling; the clumsy dialogue of the play. While the defects suggested by clumsy result from lack of muscular co-ordination, skill, talent or training, awkward suggests similar but less serious defects that stem from misproportion or more especially from an unsettled state of mind: an awkward build; an awkward grammatical construction; a mutual suspicion that made for awkward silences in their talk; shyness that left her flustered and awkward .

• One student’s word is sensitive but still awkward ; the others are without exception hopelessly clumsy .

Bungling specifically stress a propensity for making mistakes, and to an even greater degree than is true for clumsy . It also focuses on the inexpert handling mismanagement of the whole affair. Similarly, inept refers less to physical movement than to an abject and total failure to accomplish a desired result: a completely inept attempt at humour; an inept movie.

Ungainly specifically suggests a lack of grace that may or may not result, like awkward , from some innate misproportion: an ungainly attempt to retrieve the fallen serviette; an ungainly body incapable of agile movement. Gawky is much more emphatic about the physical basis of awkward or ungainly action; it may specifically suggest long, thin or attenuated limbs: the usual gawky adolescent. Lumbering , by contrast, suggests ungraceful physical misproportion that stems from an over-heavy or outsized build: the big brute who lumbered after me down the stairs; the slow pace of the lumbering wagon.