insupportable

adjective

in·​sup·​port·​able ˌin(t)-sə-ˈpȯr-tə-bəl 

: not supportable:

a

: more than can be endured

insupportable pain

b

: impossible to justify

insupportable charges

insupportably

ˌin(t)-sə-ˈpȯr-tə-blē 

adverb

Synonyms

• insufferable
• intolerable
• unbearable
• unendurable
• unsupportable

Examples of insupportable in a Sentence

the insupportable arrogance of that jerk is more than anyone should have to bear

the organization's racist views have been denounced as morally insupportable

Recent Examples on the Web

Conservatives and Republicans in Congress continue to claim that the cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits is an insupportable burden on America, so benefits need to be cut, though President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to preserve entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. —Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 7 Jan. 2025

Unless the distress among the German people should become insupportable, any sudden advance movement on their part that relied on force would be doomed to failure without armed support and assistance from outside. —Foreign Affairs, 18 Dec. 2011

There are people of goodwill who think the way out of this insupportable situation lies in the fight for equal democratic rights in a single state for everyone living in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. —Michelle Goldberg, The Mercury News, 14 Mar. 2024

The justification for this decision was increasingly insupportable as the 2010s progressed and private launch companies such as SpaceX proved far more efficient than the government. —Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 10 Jan. 2023

There is no consensus on this in today’s housing discourse, and if anything, the discussion is leaning toward trying to make housing an entitlement, something completely insupportable and undesirable. —Roger Valdez, Forbes, 5 May 2023

Without an urgent anxiety about the near-death of the American republic, about the pandemic, about the terrors of climate change, about the insupportable nature of racial injustice, about the incompatibility of gross inequality and democracy, there can be no hope. —Fintan O’Toole, The New York Review of Books, 2 Mar. 2021

For the English to transplant themselves around the world and rule over others was a natural right, but for a darker-skinned colonial to presume to do the reverse was insupportable. —Fara Dabhoiwala, The New York Review of Books, 1 July 2021

Some of those women will face insupportable life options and some will die because of Friday’s decision. —Yvonne Abraham, BostonGlobe.com, 24 June 2022

Word History

Etymology

Middle French or Late Latin; Middle French, from Late Latin insupportabilis, from Latin in- + supportare to support

First Known Use

circa 1530, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for insupportable

• deportable
• exportable
• reportable
• supportable
• transportable
• portable
• unsupportable

Kids Definition

insupportable

adjective

in·​sup·​port·​able ˌin(t)-sə-ˈpōrt-ə-bəl 

-ˈpȯrt-

1

: too bad to be endured

insupportable pain

2

: impossible to justify

insupportable charges