Wiktionary

undesirable

English

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Etymology

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From un- +‎ desirable.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˌʌndɪˈzaɪɹəbəl/
  • Hyphenation: un‧de‧sir‧able
  • Audio (US):(file)

Adjective

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undesirable (comparative more undesirable, superlative most undesirable)

  1. Objectionable or not likely to please.
    • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
      There would be no need for any of the animals to come in contact with human beings, which would clearly be most undesirable.
    • 2008, Mary E. Klingensmith, The Washington Manual of Surgery, page 327:
      Chronic venous disease includes cosmetically undesirable telangiectasias, varicose veins, venous ulceration, and claudication.
    • 2019 July 24, David Austin Walsh, “Flirting With Fascism”, in Jewish Currents‎[1]:
      [David] Brog spoke movingly of his immigrant grandfather as a triumph of the assimilationist model—a Romanian Jew who emigrated to America, learned English, and became a good patriotic American—but failed to mention that the 1924 Immigration Act was designed specifically to exclude Eastern European Jews (among other undesirable European ethnic groups) from entering the country.

Antonyms

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Derived terms

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Collocations

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with nouns
  • undesirable effect
  • undesirable consequence
  • undesirable result
  • undesirable element
  • undesirable change
  • undesirable person
  • undesirable substance
  • undesirable characteristic
  • undesirable quality
  • undesirable feature
  • undesirable behavior
  • undesirable activity
  • undesirable thing
  • undesirable event
  • undesirable reaction
  • undesirable state

Translations

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Noun

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undesirable (plural undesirables)

  1. (often in the plural) An undesirable person.
    • 1968, Gordon M. Williams, From Scenes Like These‎[2], William Morrow and Company, page 121:
      Barskiven Road was The Undesirables. Bad corporation tenants (didn't pay their rents, didn't dig their gardens, let their kids smash up windows) were transferred to The Undesirables until they showed they'd improved. His mother called them scum. Barskiven Road houses had all-metal fittings. Only the window panes could be broken, unless you had a blow-torch. McCann said they'd have them, soon. At the dancing blokes always made jokes if they knew a dame was from The Undesirables. It was supposed to be the worst street in the whole of Kilcaddie.
    • 2014, Lonely Planet, Best Place to be Today: 365 Things to do & the Perfect Day to do Them, →ISBN:
      The Matchmaking Festival provided social events for these lonely-hearted pilgrims, and allowed local personages to keep undesirables away from their daughters.
    • 2020, Noreena Hertz, The Lonely Century‎[3], →ISBN:
      The Camden Bench is not an anomaly: more and more, our cities are being designed to keep those deemed as ‘undesirables’ out. By its very nature this is ‘hostile architecture’—urban design with a focus on exclusion, design that inhibits community and tells us who is welcome and who is not.

Synonyms

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Translations

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