unable
/ʌnˈeɪbl̩/
unable adjective: not able; lacking a certain ability.
Adjective
unable (comparative unabler or more unable, superlative unablest or most unable)
- Not able; lacking a certain ability.
- Are you unable to mind your own business or something?
- Fulham switched off as Giggs took a quick corner to Valencia. He played it back to Giggs, whose cross was headed in by Nani with the lurking Rooney unable to add a touch.2011 December 21, Tom Rostance, “Fulham 0-5 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport
- Synonyms:
- helpless
Interjection
- Indicating that a requested course of action is not possible to carry out.
- "November three seven kilo, climb and maintain twelve thousand." "Unable, we have pressurization problems. Maintaining nine thousand."
Verb
unable (third-person singular simple present unables, present participle unabling, simple past and past participle unabled)
unable meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
unable in Hindi
- not able
- असमर्थ asmarth
unable in Tamil
- இயலாத, முடியாத
unable in Urdu
- unable
- اشکت aśakt
unable in Bengali
- অক্ষম, অসমর্থ, ক্ষমতাহীন, ক্ষমতাশূন্য, ক্ষমতাবতী, অশক্ত
More languagesFewer languages
- unable in Telugu
- అసమర్థము asamarthamu
- unable in Malayalam
- വയ്യാത്ത vayyātta, പൊട്ടൻ poṭṭaṉ
- unable in Kannada
- ಅಸಮರ್ಥ, ಅಶಕ್ತ, ಆಗದ
- unable in Punjabi
- ਅਸਮਰੱਥ
- unable in Sanskrit
- अशक्त aśakta, कलुष kaluṣa
- unable in Arabic
- عَاجِز ʕājiz
Examples of unable in a sentence
- Police have been unable to ID the body found in the river.
- With his recent divorce still fresh in his mind, he was unable to concentrate on his work.
- Since the system outage, I've been unable to log in to my account.
Synonyms of unable
Antonyms
Forms of unable
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | unabler |
| comparative | more unable |
| superlative | unablest |
| superlative | most unable |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | unables |
| present participle | unabling |
| past participle | unabled |
| past | unabled |
Origin of unable
From Middle English unable, unabel, unhable, unhabil, equivalent to un- + able.
From Middle English unablen, equivalent to un- + able.
Words formed from unable
- be unable to believe one's eyes
- unableness
- unable to can
- unably
Words that rhyme with unable
16 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about unable
- What does unable mean?
- Unable means not able; lacking a certain ability.
- What is unable in Hindi?
- Unable in Hindi is असमर्थ (asmarth). See Unable meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is unable?
- Unable can be an adjective, an interjection or a verb.
- How do you pronounce unable?
- Unable is pronounced /ʌnˈeɪbl̩/.
Words near unable in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: unable (page history and authors); unable (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); اشکت (Urdu) (page history and authors); unable (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); అసమర్థము (Telugu) (page history and authors); പൊട്ടൻ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); unable (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); unable (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); अशक्त (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-unable.ogg.
Cite this entry: “unable.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unable. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.