unavailable
Britishadjective
Explanation
If you can't meet your friend for dinner on Tuesday because you have other plans, you are unavailable. If the shoes you want have been sold out, they are unavailable. Unavailable means not accessible. If you avail yourself of something, you use it or take advantage of it. You might avail yourself of discount tickets to the theater provided by your school. If the tickets are all sold out, they are unavailable to you. In the context of dating, if someone is unavailable, he or she is already in a steady relationship or married. Someone emotionally unavailable is not open to sharing their feelings.
Vocabulary lists containing unavailable
Nobody's Home: Synonyms For "Absent"
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un-
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Absent
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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.
The choice was rational: Long-term safety data was unavailable, efficacy thresholds hadn’t been cleared, and further investment in an unproven compound risked starving proven therapies of resources.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 5, 2026
It’s not as though this information was unavailable to Coppins’ editors.
From Slate • May 5, 2026
Despite his availability issues, Havertz has five goals and four assists in 20 appearances, giving him a goal involvement of nearly one every two games which highlights how Arsenal miss him when unavailable.
From BBC • May 1, 2026
I had a long pattern of choosing unavailable men.
From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026
Hank was down at his mother’s and unavailable, and Jem had to make do with his younger sister for company.
From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee
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.
