Untenable
Lease terms, excuses, and peace deals all eventually hit a wall where staying put costs more than walking away.
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Not able to be maintained or defended against attack or objection; unsustainable.
Memory trick
UN-TENABLE: not able to be held (tenere = hold).
Examples
The current on-call load is untenable and needs immediate redesign.
Her argument became untenable after contradictory evidence emerged.
A strategy that ignores retention is ultimately untenable.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From un- "not" + tenable, from Latin tenere "to hold."
Usage Notes
Excellent for policy, workload, architecture, or arguments that cannot reasonably continue.
Real-life contexts
Use in escalation: "This situation is untenable; we need intervention today."
Use in debate: "That claim is untenable given the evidence."
Use in planning: "If staffing stays flat, this roadmap is untenable."
Common Mistakes
Untenable means cannot be maintained, not merely inconvenient.
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Part of Speech
adjective
Difficulty
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