unbearable
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unbearable
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at un- 1, bearable
Explanation
When something's unbearable, you just can't take it. Your neighbor's loud music was always annoying, but when the walls shook until your favorite vase fell and broke you knew it had become unbearable. If you look at the adjective unbearable and strip away the prefix un- and the suffix -able, you have the word bear, meaning "to endure." Now put back those add-ons and you end up with a word that means "not able to endure." In other words, you can't stand it. You thought that your job as a police officer was tough until you volunteered to umpire a little league ballgame — the pressure was unbearable!
Vocabulary lists containing unbearable
"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, Chapters 12–15
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The Cay
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
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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.
After nearly a decade in Spain’s Costa del Sol, the heat was becoming unbearable for Gabriele Pohl.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026
Veteran broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen, a high-profile campaigner for assisted dying, called on MPs to support the bill, saying her own life with terminal cancer had become "unbearable".
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
The unexpected decency of people thrown together on an unbearable day?
From Salon ● Sep. 8, 2026
"If something positive can come from this unbearable loss that we're suffering, that's all we look to achieve."
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
Olanna pulled her eyes away from the slight swell of her belly; it was newly unbearable, the thought that Odenigbo’s baby had been in that body.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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.
