Word.ws English Dictionary

undesirable

Syllables: un·de·sir·able/ˌʌndɪˈzaɪɹəbəl/

undesirable adjective: not desirable, objectionable or not likely to please.

Adjective

undesirable (comparative more undesirable, superlative most undesirable)

  1. Not desirable, objectionable or not likely to please.
    • There would be no need for any of the animals to come in contact with human beings, which would clearly be most undesirable.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC
    • Chronic venous disease includes cosmetically undesirable telangiectasias, varicose veins, venous ulceration, and claudication.2008, Mary E. Klingensmith, The Washington Manual of Surgery, page 327

Noun

undesirable (plural undesirables)

  1. (in plural, often) An undesirable person.
    • Barskiven Road was The Undesirables. Bad corporation tenants (didn't pay their rents, didn't dig their gardens, let their kids smash up windows) were transferred to The Undesirables until they showed they'd improved. His mother called them scum. Barskiven Road houses had all-metal fittings. Only...1968, Gordon M. Williams, From Scenes Like These, William Morrow and Company, page 121
    • The Matchmaking Festival provided social events for these lonely-hearted pilgrims, and allowed local personages to keep undesirables away from their daughters.2014, Lonely Planet, Best Place to be Today: 365 Things to do & the Perfect Day to do Them, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    mesel, jerk, villain, and troublemaker

undesirable meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

undesirable in Hindi

अवांछनीय

undesirable in Tamil

விரும்பத்தகாத, வெறுக்கத்தக்க

undesirable in Marathi

an undesirable or troublesome action; something that causes difficulty or embarrassment
कारभार kārbhār

undesirable in Urdu

غیرمرغوب, نامناسب, ناپسندیدہ, ناروا, قابل اعتراض
More languagesFewer languages
undesirable in Bengali
অবাঞ্ছিত
undesirable in Telugu
అవాంఛనీయమైనది
undesirable in Malayalam
അകാമ്യം akāmyaṁ
undesirable in Kannada
ಅನಪೇಕ್ಷಣೀಯ, ಬೇಡದ, ಒಪ್ಪಲಾಗದ
undesirable in Sinhala
අනිටු aniṭu
undesirable in Nepali
अवांछनीय
undesirable in Indonesian
pengacau
undesirable in Thai
ไม่พึงประสงค์ mâi-pʉng-bprà-sǒng, บุคคลไม่พึงประสงค์ bùk-kon-mâi-pʉng-bprà-sǒng

Examples of undesirable in a sentence

  • Bad corporation tenants (didn't pay their rents, didn't dig their gardens, let their kids smash up windows) were transferred to The Undesirables until they showed they'd improved.1968, Gordon M. Williams, From Scenes Like These, William Morrow and Company, page 121:
  • The Camden Bench is not an anomaly: more and more, our cities are being designed to keep those deemed as ‘undesirables’ out.2020, Noreena Hertz, The Lonely Century, →ISBN:

All 36 example sentences with undesirable

Synonyms of undesirable

Antonyms

Forms of undesirable

Adjective
comparativemore undesirable
superlativemost undesirable
Noun
pluralundesirables

Origin of undesirable

From un- + desirable.

Words formed from undesirable

Questions about undesirable

What does undesirable mean?
Undesirable means not desirable, objectionable or not likely to please.
What is undesirable in Hindi?
Undesirable in Hindi is अवांछनीय. See Undesirable meaning in Hindi.
How do you use undesirable in a sentence?
Bad corporation tenants (didn't pay their rents, didn't dig their gardens, let their kids smash up windows) were transferred to The Undesirables until they showed they'd improved.
What part of speech is undesirable?
Undesirable can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce undesirable?
Undesirable is pronounced /ˌʌndɪˈzaɪɹəbəl/.

Words near undesirable in the dictionary

  1. undesigningly
  2. undesigningness
  3. undesigns
  4. undesirabilities
  5. undesirability
  6. undesirable
  7. undesirableness
  8. undesirablenesses
  9. undesirables
  10. undesirably
  11. undesire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: undesirable (page history and authors); undesirable (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); undesirable (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); कारभार (Marathi) (page history and authors); undesirable (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); undesirable (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); undesirable (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); അകാമ്യം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); undesirable (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); අනිටු (Sinhala) (page history and authors); undesirable (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-undesirable.wav.

Cite this entry: “undesirable.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/undesirable. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.