Skip to main content
unsinkable

unsinkable

6 4.6
Not able to sink in water
  • adjective
  • /ʌnˈsɪŋkəbl/
: insumergible
  • In her day, she was the largest ship ever built and was believed to be "unsinkable."
  • unsinkable ship
  • unsinkable aircraft carrier
  • unsinkable boat

So is this thing actually unsinkable?

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • This ship is unsinkable.

  • And the ship was designed to be as unsinkable as they could.

  • Waste of deck space as it is on an unsinkable ship.

  • But it was meant to be unsinkable.

  • So this is the ship they say is unsinkable.

  • There were those who had claimed the ship was unsinkable.

    Academic text (2012)
  • With all of this combination of safety factors, she was considered virtually unsinkable.

  • Everyone still believes the Titanic is unsinkable.

    Blog text (1)
  • And as the deck continued to tilt beneath their feet, he knew that the unsinkable ship was sinking fast.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • The engineers claimed that the new cruise liner was unsinkable due to its advanced design.

Synonyms

nonsubmergible
vsunsinkable
  • Specialized
9.9

Cannot sink in water

states impossibility of sinking or being submerged under water
nonsubmersible
vsunsinkable
  • Specialized
8.4

Cannot be put under water

also covers inability to sink as well as submersion

Antonyms

1 5.8

Able to go below the surface of the water and stay there

Compounds

A strong belief in yourself that never goes away

How Sinkable

sinkable
1 5.8
heavy
756 1.0
buoyant
  • Specialized
6 5.3
unsinkable
6 4.6

Surface Forms

unsinkable positive

Morphology

unsinkable = sinkable (transparent) = un + sink + able

Formed by prefixing 'un-' to 'sinkable' (sink + -able), producing 'not able to be sunk'.

Etymology

Unsinkable comes from three parts: un- meaning 'not', sink meaning 'to go down', and -able meaning 'can be'. So something unsinkable is 'not able to go down' under water, which is why it means impossible to sink.