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unable

adj
/ʌnˈeɪbl̩/

Etymology

From Middle English unable, unabel, unhable, unhabil, equivalent to un- + able.

  1. inherited from unable

Definitions

  1. Not able

    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.

  2. 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."

  3. To render unable

    To render unable; to disable.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at unable. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01unable02course03rigged04fixed05unmovable06incapable07weak

A definitional loop anchored at unable. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at unable

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA