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unusably

unusably

7.2
In a way that makes something so damaged, wrong, or unclear that people cannot make it work
  • adverb
  • /ʌˈnjuːzəbli/
translation icon : de manera inutilizable
  • Not unusably broken, but lacking—like a clock without a snooze alarm, or a tape recorder without a fast-forward button.

Examples

  • Twitter used to be a place of interconnection characterized by beautiful simplicity and flexibility, and it's rapidly becoming an unusably unwieldy monster.

    Blog text (10)
  • I even had the expected experience that I get in all NFS and Criterion games, where the car handling and the physics feel unusably awful, and I think I'm never going to get five minutes of enjoyment out of this game.

    Blog text (7)
  • The software is so poorly designed that it is unusably slow.

  • After the storm, the road was unusably damaged, making it impossible to drive.

  • The packaging was ripped open in transit, rendering the product unusably contaminated.

Synonyms

impractically
vsunusably
1 6.1

In a way that does not work well in real life

means something cannot be used at all rather than just lacking usefulness
unworkably
vsunusably
7.7

In a way that does not work well or is too difficult to use

is completely unable to be used or fit for purpose rather than somewhat difficult

How Usable

effectively
261 3.6
usefully
5 1.1
unusably
7.2

Surface Forms

unusably positive

Morphology

unusably = unusable (transparent) = un + use + able + ly

Formed by adding the adverbial suffix '-ly' to the adjective 'unusable', a regular derivation.

Etymology

Unusably is made of parts you already know: un- meaning 'not', the root use meaning 'to use', and -able meaning 'able to be', with -ly turning it into an adverb. So, unusably simply means 'in a way that cannot be used'.