unattainable
Britishadjective
Explanation
Something unattainable is out of reach — you can't attain it or achieve it. Unfortunately, a lot of things in life are unattainable. For most of us, making a billion dollars is unattainable. Marrying a famous movie star is probably also unattainable. Flying to the moon in a private space yacht is totally unattainable. If something is unattainable, then you just can't get it. In life, it's not always easy to see what's unattainable and what's attainable, which can cause a lot of frustration.
Vocabulary lists containing unattainable
Power Prefix: un-
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "U"
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: un-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
That’s what I want too — I want to see some humanity, especially these days when everybody is being force-fed so much perfection and so much unattainable grace.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2026
Gen Z feels prices are high and housing unattainable.
From Barron's ● Mar. 14, 2026
Two years into his government, and growing increasingly frustrated with what he said were the central bank’s unattainable inflation targets, he abruptly reset inflation targets during a press conference in December 2017.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026
"It's frankly astonishing that airlines think they can ignore the rules and mislead customers with unattainable prices, so it's absolutely right that the ASA has made this ruling," he said.
From BBC ● Jan. 27, 2026
It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
