How to use untenable in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective

Untenable means not able to be held or sustained, such as of an opinion or position. Example: “The theory of cold fusion was untenable.”

Examples of untenable by meaning

adjectiveNot able to be held or sustained, such as of an opinion or position.

The theory of cold fusion was untenable.
They are seeking to escape from the unpleasant implications of an untenable status dilemma.1970, Gary Schwartz, Sect Ideologies and Social Status, page 219
The rumors about Anderson nevertheless placed Glasgow in an untenable social position, for close friends either suspected or knew of their engagement.1998, Susan Goodman, Ellen Glasgow: a biography, page 149

adjectiveUnfit for habitation.

This untenable dwelling housed a family of six Eskimos: a grandmother, father and mother and three children.1939, Hygeia, volume 17, numbers 1-6, page 331
It is equally plausible to interpret the evidence to imply a life-span extending well into the fifth century, followed by a phase when the building became increasingly shabby and then untenable.2007, Roger White, Britannia Prima: Britain's Last Roman Province, page 192

More sentences with untenable

By 29, my financial situation wasn’t just disorganized, it was untenable.2026 April 22, Jillian Sanders, “The Danger of Surrendering Your Financial Independence in a Relationship”, in TIME, archived from the…. From the entry by
In large scale surveys the assumption of missingness at random is untenable.1992, Arijit Chaudhuri, Horst Stenger, Survey Sampling: Theory and Methods, page 282. From the entry missingness
Two factors made the Ministry untenable; private industry considered the featherbedding of the public sector to be unfair competition.2020 September 11, James Walston, The Mafia and Clientelism: Roads to Rome in Post-War Calabria, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry featherbedding
First, Chance and his collaborators have clung to the untenable generalization that monkey society is agonic and ape society hedonic.2007, Warren D. TenHouten, “The Sociorelational Approach to the Emotions: Four Elementary Forms of Sociality”, in A General Theory of…. From the entry agonic
A strict dichotomy between dictionaries and encyclopedias is arguably untenable.2003, R. R. K. Hartmann, Lexicography. From the entry encyclopedicity
Bill Clinton was elected on an untenable premise: that it is the job of the President to manage the economy.1993 July, Charles R. Morris, “It's Not the Economy, Stupid”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN, archived from the original on 28 Nov 2025. From the entry credibly
It’s a nasty stewpot of intellectually untenable premises and irresponsible speculation that frequently reads like a “Saturday Night Live” parody of the crackpot right.2007 February 6, Michiko Kakutani, “Dispatch From Gomorrah, Savaging the Cultural Left”, in New York Times. From the entry stewpot
This shows, I think, that sensitivity to the argument from soft introspectability is an untenable halfway house; we must accept strict introspectability or nothing.2000, Roger Teichmann, Logic, Cause and Action, →ISBN, page 93. From the entry introspectability
It was as if the Samizdat spirit, extended and intensified by the proliferation of do-it-yourself media, had rendered the centralised, statist tyrannies of the Soviet Union untenable.2006 January, David Garcia, “Learning the Right Lessons”, in Mute, →ISSN. From the entry statist
After finding both stairwells untenable at the roof, the Captain and the rookie take the window‐washing scaffold—any port in a storm—down the side of the building to the fire floor.1974 January 27, Dennis Smith, “Playing with fire can mean getting burned [review of Firehouse]”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.…. From the entry any port in a storm

Meaning of untenable

adjective Not able to be held or sustained, such as of an opinion or position.
adjective Unfit for habitation.

Full definition of untenable

Questions about untenable in a sentence

How do you use untenable in a sentence?: Untenable is used as an adjective. For example: “The theory of cold fusion was untenable.”
What is a short sentence with untenable?: “The theory of cold fusion was untenable.”
What does untenable mean?: Untenable means not able to be held or sustained, such as of an opinion or position.

Adapted from Wiktionary: untenable (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: 2026-09-02

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