unreliable
Syllables: un·re·li·a·bleUK/ˌʌn.ɹɪˈlaɪ.ə.bl̩//ˌʌn.ɹəˈlaɪ.ə.bəl/
unreliable adjective: not reliable.
Adjective
unreliable (comparative more unreliable, superlative most unreliable)
- Not reliable.
- Tell one another whether any one of you has ever heard me discuss such questions briefly or at length; and then you will realize that the other popular reports about me are equally unreliable.1954, Plato, translated by Hugh Tredennick, “Socrates on Trial: The Apology”, in The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics), Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, →OCLC, page 22
- The opposite issue emerges in the summer when students face scorching temperatures with unreliable or nonexistent air conditioning.2018 January 4, Janie Tankard Carnock, “Frigid Baltimore City schools: The racism we haven’t confronted”, in CNN
- Synonyms:
- flakey, sporadic, undependable, shaky
- Antonyms:
- reliable
Noun
unreliable (plural unreliables)
- One who or that which cannot be relied upon.
- His employment by the leading papers in Chicago was intermittent, as he was classed among the unreliables. One could never tell when he was going to get drunk.1894, Inebriety: its treatment and cure, page 17
unreliable meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
unreliable in Urdu
- بات کا کچا, بددیانت, بےسروپا, بےوفا, کچا
unreliable in Bengali
- অবিশ্বস্ত
unreliable in Malayalam
- untrustworthy, undependable, irresponsible
- വിശ്വാസയോഗ്യമല്ലാത്ത, വിശ്വസിക്കാനാവാത്ത, ആശ്രയിക്കാൻ കൊള്ളാത്ത, നമ്പാൻ കൊള്ളാത്ത, ആലംബമാക്കാനാവാത്ത, വിശ്വസിക്കാൻ കൊള്ളാത്ത
- open to doubt, questionable, doubtful
- വിശ്വസിക്കാനാവാത്ത, ചോദ്യം ചെയ്യത്തക്ക, അപ്രാമാണിക, വിശ്വാസയോഗ്യമല്ലാത്ത, പ്രാമാണികമായി സ്വീകരിക്കാൻ തക്കതല്ലാത്ത, സംശയാസ്പദമായ
unreliable in Kannada
- ಅವಿಶ್ವಸನೀಯ, ನಂಬಲಾಗದ, ನೆಚ್ಚಿಕೆಯಿಲ್ಲದ
Examples of unreliable in a sentence
- They say he is a poor judge of character considering all the unreliable friends he has made.
- Military secrets should not be entrusted to unreliable private individuals.
- The storyline in the film “The Usual Suspects” is presented from the point of view of an unreliable narrator.
Synonyms of unreliable
Antonyms
Forms of unreliable
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more unreliable |
| superlative | most unreliable |
| Noun | |
| plural | unreliables |
Origin of unreliable
From un- + reliable.
Words formed from unreliable
Phrases with unreliable
Words that rhyme with unreliable
Questions about unreliable
- What does unreliable mean?
- Unreliable means not reliable.
- What is unreliable in Urdu?
- Unreliable in Urdu is بات کا کچا, بددیانت, بےسروپا. See Unreliable meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is unreliable?
- Unreliable can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce unreliable?
- Unreliable is pronounced /ˌʌn.ɹɪˈlaɪ.ə.bl̩/ (UK).
Words near unreliable in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: unreliable (page history and authors); unreliable (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); unreliable (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unreliable (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); unreliable (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-unreliable.wav.
Cite this entry: “unreliable.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unreliable. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.