Unenviable

adj

adj ·5 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Difficult, undesirable, or unpleasant; not to be envied.

    "Valjean was in the unenviable position of either living with the knowledge an innocent would suffer for his crime or revealing his true identity and going back to prison."

Adjective
  1. 1
    so undesirable as to be incapable of arousing envy wordnet
  2. 2
    hard to deal with; especially causing pain or embarrassment wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
awkwardembarrassingembarrassingstickyundesirable

Example

More examples

"Valjean was in the unenviable position of either living with the knowledge an innocent would suffer for his crime or revealing his true identity and going back to prison."

Etymology

From un- + enviable.

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