uninhabitable
Britishadjective
Explanation
When it's impossible to live somewhere, that place is uninhabitable. A house is uninhabitable if is missing basic things like a roof and heat. Buildings are considered uninhabitable when they are dangerous, with holes in the floor, or exposed electrical wires that pose a fire hazard. It's not safe for people to live in those conditions. Uninhabitable regions of the world might be too cold or too hot — or, in the case of Brazil's Ilha da Queimada Grande, or "Snake Island," they might be overrun with venomous snakes.
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.
But those supplies have long dried up, and researchers today estimate 80 percent of Nauru has been rendered uninhabitable by mining.
From Barron's • May 13, 2026
Others all around are boarded up and uninhabitable.
From BBC • Apr. 12, 2026
They also highlighted an additional 24 planets within a more restrictive 3D habitable zone, based on tighter assumptions about how much heat a planet can tolerate before becoming uninhabitable.
From Science Daily • Mar. 25, 2026
As it happens, the disaster in the northern Japanese city has left the area uninhabitable even today, but the possibilities had approached the apocalyptic.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 5, 2026
Seven years later the last dense growth of the prickly pear had been destroyed and the once uninhabitable areas reopened to settlement and grazing.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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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.