Awkward

1 he put her in a very awkward position: embarrassing, uncomfortable, unpleasant, delicate, tricky, problematic, troublesome, thorny; humiliating, compromising; informal sticky, dicey, hairy.
2 she felt awkward alone with him: uncomfortable, uneasy, tense, nervous, edgy, unquiet; self-conscious, embarrassed. ANTONYMS relaxed, at ease.
3 his awkward movements: clumsy, ungainly, uncoordinated, graceless, inelegant, gauche, gawky, wooden, stiff; unskillful, maladroit, inept, blundering; informal clodhopping, ham-fisted, ham-handed, heavy-handed; informal all thumbs.

adjective
1 causing difficulty; hard to do or deal with : one of the most awkward jobs is painting a ceiling | some awkward questions | the wheelbarrow can be awkward to maneuver.
• deliberately unreasonable or uncooperative : you're being damned awkward! | please excuse my daughter—she's at an awkward age.
2 causing or feeling embarrassment or inconvenience : he had put her in a very awkward situation.
3 not smooth or graceful; ungainly : Luther's awkward movements impeded his progress | she was long-legged and rather awkward.
• uncomfortable or abnormal : make sure the baby isn't sleeping in an awkward position.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [the wrong way around, upside down] ): from dialect awk [backward, perverse, clumsy] (from Old Norse afugr ‘turned the wrong way’ ) + -ward .