Intolerable

//ɪnˈtɑləɹəbl̩// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not tolerable; not capable of being borne or endured.
  2. 2
    Extremely offensive or insulting.

    "It is an intolerable sound that sets spoons tinkling in saucers and windowpanes vibrating."

  3. 3
    Extremely worn and degraded, to the point of being unsafe.

    "o take apart an ageing nuclear facility, you have to put a lot of other things together first. New technologies, for instance, and new buildings to replace the intolerable ones, and new reserves of money."

Adjective
  1. 1
    incapable of being tolerated or endured wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
insufferableunacceptableunsupportablea bit muchabhorrentabsolute

Example

More examples

"The pain from the compound fracture was almost intolerable."

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English intolerable, borrowed from Middle French intolerable, from Latin intolerābilis. By surface analysis, in- + tolerable.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.