| English Dictionary |
UNSUITABLE
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| IPA (US): |  |
Dictionary entry overview: What does unsuitable mean?
• UNSUITABLE (adjective)
The adjective UNSUITABLE has 4 senses:
1. not meant or adapted for a particular purpose
2. not capable of being applied
3. not conducive to good moral development
4. not worthy of being chosen (especially as a spouse)
Familiarity information: UNSUITABLE used as an adjective is uncommon.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Not meant or adapted for a particular purpose
Context example:
a solvent unsuitable for use on wood surfaces
Similar:
unfit (below the required standards for a purpose)
Derivation:
unsuitability; unsuitableness (the quality of having the wrong properties for a specific purpose)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not capable of being applied
Synonyms:
inapplicable; unsuitable
Context example:
rules inapplicable to day students
Similar:
irrelevant (having no bearing on or connection with the subject at issue)
Derivation:
unsuitability (the quality of having the wrong properties for a specific purpose)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Not conducive to good moral development
Context example:
the movie is unsuitable for children
Similar:
bad (having undesirable or negative qualities)
Derivation:
unsuitableness (the quality of having the wrong properties for a specific purpose)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Not worthy of being chosen (especially as a spouse)
Synonyms:
undesirable; unsuitable
Similar:
ineligible (not eligible)
Derivation:
unsuitableness (the quality of having the wrong properties for a specific purpose)
Context examples
Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
In his marrying such a woman therefore there would be nothing unsuitable.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
State of a particular method of treatment, regimen, procedure, medication, etc. of being unsuitable and inadvisable, often because of a likely adverse reaction.
(Contraindicated, NCI Thesaurus)
It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
They used this climatic information to build an ‘ecological niche model’ to map suitable and unsuitable regions for each bird group.
(Past climate change pushed birds from the northern hemisphere to the tropics, University of Cambridge)
A final experiment showed that ebselen boosted SUMOylation in the brains of healthy mice more than a control injection. 6-thioguanine was not tested because it is a chemotherapy drug with side effects that make it unsuitable as a potential stroke treatment.
(Hibernating ground squirrels provide clues to new stroke treatments, National Institutes of Health)
It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much happiness.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Elinor thought it wisest to make no answer to this, lest they might provoke each other to an unsuitable increase of ease and unreserve; and was even partly determined never to mention the subject again.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents, which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Excepting inequality of fortune, and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
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