rough around the edges
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Lacking refinement or polish, but still likable
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Thiếu tinh tế hoặc đánh bóng, nhưng vẫn dễ chịu
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: having rough edges
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ What talisman is there,’ he asked, his voice rough around the edges, ‘ that could protect me from you?
‘ I'm no more a gentleman than you are a lady,’ he said with soft menace, his voice gone rough around the edges.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “rough around the edges” mean?
Lacking refinement or polish, but still likable Literally: having rough edges
Is “rough around the edges” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.