Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use unsatisfactory in a sentence

18 example sentences · adjective

Unsatisfactory means inadequate, substandard or not satisfactory. Example: “Smith's marks in the finals were unsatisfactory and he was referred.”

More sentences with unsatisfactory

  • Smith's marks in the finals were unsatisfactory and he was referred.From the entry refer
  • The plan to build a dam just downriver from Fooville was foiled by unsatisfactory soil mechanics.From the entry soil mechanics
  • Mr. Jeffries’s troops have grown increasingly anxious this week about the possibility that Mr. Biden is going to cut an unsatisfactory deal to raise the debt limit.From the entry cut a deal
  • It progresses then because existing metaphysical doctrines are felt to be constricting frameworks, and thus unsatisfactory.2012, Joseph Agassi, Science in Flux. From the entry doctrine
  • And so an unsuccessful bookseller writes after his shop is closed on a singularly unsatisfactory day.[1938], [William Darling], “Destroy the Books”, in The Bankrupt Bookseller Speaks Again, Edinburgh; London: Oliver and Boyd, →OCLC, page 212. From the entry what is one to do
  • After five days of unsatisfactory work, we came to the conclusion that the furnace was underburdened.1909, American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Society of Mining Engineers of AIME., American Institute of…. From the entry underburden
  • They patch up, mop up, neaten up the halfcooked and unsatisfactory ideas they find lying around in their head.1998, Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers, →ISBN. From the entry mop up
  • The Adivasis are unable to bear the burden of their children's education on account of their unsatisfactory economic condition.1967, Annual Administration Report on Scheduled Areas in Gujarat State, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India: Government Central Press, →ISSN…. From the entry imburse
  • Trial maltings using between 0.05% and 0.4% formaldehyde in the resteep gave unsatisfactory results when applied before three days' germination.1966, International Brewers' Journal - Volume 102, Issue 2, page 743. From the entry resteep
  • The only photograph we possessed of the slopes leading to the South Col was a rather unsatisfactory aerial one.1955, Edmund Hillary, “To Everest, 1951”, in High Adventure, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →OCLC; republished as High Adventure: The 50th…. From the entry Everester
  • Parliament in the seventeenth century an unsatisfactory barometer of public opinion because the franchise was irregularly distributed and the witch-ridden south-east over-represented.2012 May 23, R. T. Davies, Four Centuries of Witch Beliefs (RLE Witchcraft), Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry witch-ridden
  • I agree, but all that means is that the people can wait for the next election to boot out an unsatisfactory leader.1996 May 3, M. Emily Cummins, “Re: Boris Yeltsin”, in alt.current-events.russia (Usenet). From the entry elex
  • Faulty science is seen in the "woozle effect," where questionable research findings become "established facts" despite being based on an unsatisfactory methodology.1989, Howard Dubowitz, Eli Newberger, “Pediatrics and Child Abuse”, in Dante Cicchetti, Vicki Carlson, editors, Child Maltreatment: Theory…. From the entry Woozle effect
  • At the same time, three sets of obsolete angle point protectors (used for slip connections), which were considered unsatisfactory, were taken out and several redundant connections removed.1962 October, “Talking of Trains: Liverpool Street layout remodelled”, in Modern Railways, page 222. From the entry take out
  • The camera must be held quite still when the exposure is being made; by far the most common reason for unsatisfactory results is camera-shake at the moment of exposure.1950 December, Canon Eric Treacy, “Railway Photography”, in Railway Magazine, page 796. From the entry camera shake
  • But an important minor triad, D F A, is harsh in just intonation, and other unsatisfactory triads result when this tuning is extended to the complete chromatic scale.1948 November, J.M. Barbour, “Music and Ternary Continued Fractions”, in American Mathematical Monthly, volume 55, number 9, page 545. From the entry minor
  • This is not unsatisfactory, but the change at Ballybrophy (a dismal station at the best of times) is not one that meets with the approval of the citizens of Clonmel.1957 May, Walter McGrath, “The Thurles-Clonmel Line, C.I.E.”, in Railway Magazine, page 320. From the entry at the best of times
  • Energy doubtless "is," but it is not possessed of "somewhatness." The definitions of energy are all unsatisfactory; the most common one is that energy is the capacity for doing work.1903, The Electrical Review, volume 51, page 616. From the entry somewhatness

Meaning of unsatisfactory

  1. adjective Inadequate, substandard or not satisfactory.

Full definition of unsatisfactory

Questions about unsatisfactory in a sentence

How do you use unsatisfactory in a sentence?
Unsatisfactory is used as an adjective. For example: “Smith's marks in the finals were unsatisfactory and he was referred.”
What is a short sentence with unsatisfactory?
“Smith's marks in the finals were unsatisfactory and he was referred.”
What does unsatisfactory mean?
Unsatisfactory means inadequate, substandard or not satisfactory.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unsatisfactory (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use unsatisfactory in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/unsatisfactory. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.