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Word: oafishness (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
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Usage:

...Lolita of coquettish innocence, promises to lead him to freedom but never does; the jailers themselves stage an elaborate comedy only to laugh at his false hopes for escape. His past life emerges as a base and saddening farce-his bastard birth, his sluttish wife, his crippled, oafish children who are not really his. And always there is the maddening Alice-in-Wonderland logic by which it is not he who is victimized but they-his family, his jailers-their regular lives cruelly upset by his tasteless act in getting himself condemned to death...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Books: The Dream of Cincinnatus C. | 10/26/1959 | See Source »

...Teamsters, Baker visited Miami, there lavished $25,000-in Teamsters Union funds, naturally-on a house, swimming pool and Buick for his doxy. Since 1953 Baker has spent $2,200-also in Teamsters' money-for sanitarium treatment that brought his weight down from 420 Ibs. to an oafish...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: National Affairs: Hoffa's Funny Friend | 9/1/1958 | See Source »

...plot concerns two Hollywood songwriters, one oafish, the other supposedly intelligent (although the difference is hard to tell), who get involved with two moth-eaten California Cleopatras. One of them is Billie, who talks exclusively in Southern-fried cliches; the other is Eva, statuesque, free, pagan, and therefore known as "The Greek." The story rambles from a Malibu motel to Acapulco; the characters whinny in bed, cry "Man, it's great!" and engage in minor unimaginative forms of sadism. It is just possible that Author Morris is kidding, but neither the lechers nor the beauty-shop matrons to whom...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Books: Mixed Fiction, Aug. 19, 1957 | 8/19/1957 | See Source »

...Isabelle was pretty, suitably unsure of herself in the rich surroundings, but just a slight bit stiff; Louis Edmonds, as the twin brothers, was good as the calculating Hugo but could probably have made the sheepish Frederic more of a contrast; Dee Victor grated well as Isabelle's unbearably oafish mother; Olive Dunbar overplayed Capulet, the servant with romatic ideas, a little too much; Stanley Jay as the crumbling butler, Laurinda Barrett as the vampish Lady India, and Kilty himself as the money baron, were all excellent...

Author: By Stephen R. Barnett, | Title: Ring Round the Moon | 7/2/1956 | See Source »

...scenario had been carefully prepared by the gang leader, fat Anthony Pino, 48, an alien from Sicily whose criminal record ranges from molesting a young girl to stealing a dozen golf balls, and whose oafish manner covers a keen intelligence. Before he was ready to stage the robbery, Pino carefully picked his cast and cased the North Terminal Garage (the Brink's headquarters) many times, figuring escape routes and systematically noting schedules and shipments of money. He learned exactly where the big money was stored, went over every foot of the establishment after closing hours. Under the noses...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: CRIME: The Big Payoff | 1/23/1956 | See Source »

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