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helpless; incapable; -- now usually followed by an infinitive or an adverbial phrase; as, unable for work; unable to bear fatigue. Sapless age and weak unable limbs. Shak.

Disabled. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

Inability. [Obs.] Hales.

Heavy; insupportable. [Obs.] Sir T. More.

ous; hence, harmonious; musical; tuneful. -- Tun"a*ble*ness, n. -- Tun"a*bly, adv. And tunable as sylvan pipe or song. Milton.

A figure of speech in which the speaker breaks off suddenly, as if unwilling or unable to state what was in his mind; as, "I declare to you that his conduct -- but I can not speak of that, here."

A trader who becomes unable to pay his debts; an insolvent trader; popularly, any person who is unable to pay his debts; an insolvent person. M

Not having the faculty of discernment; destitute of intellectual light; unable or unwilling to understand or judge; as, authors are blind to their own defects. But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more, That they may stumble on, and deeper fall. Milton.

To render unable to breathe by filling, pressing upon, or squeezing the windpipe; to stifle; to suffocate; to strangle. With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. Shak.

; to devise; to make up; to contrive; to plan; to plot. He was a man of a feeble stomach, unable to concoct any great fortune. Hayward.

A mark or cross, as the signature of a person who is unable to write.

The crosslike mark or symbol used instead of a signature by those unable to write. Five Kentish abbesses . . . .subscribed their names and crosses. Fuller.

A pack of hounds. Milton. A cry more tunable Was never hollaed to, nor cheered with horn. Shak.

Wanting the sense of hearing, either wholly or in part; unable to perceive sounds; hard of hearing; as, a deaf man. Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf. Shak.

Destitute of defense; unprepared to resist attack; unable to oppose; unprotected. -- De*fense"less*ly, adv. -- De*fense"less*ness, n.

ed the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. Burke. A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties. J. Buchanan.

Lacking ability; unable. [Obs.] "Our disable and unactive force." Daniel.

Causing dissatisfaction; unable to give content; unsatisfactory; displeasing. To have reduced the different qualifications in the different States to one uniform rule, would probably have been as dissatisfactory to some of the States, as difficult for the Convention. A. Hamilton. -- Dis*sat`is*fac"to*ri*ness, n.…

Destitute of the power of speech; unable; to utter articulate sounds; as, the dumb brutes. To unloose the very tongues even of dumb creatures. Hooker.

Unable to satisfy; unsatisfactory; hollow; vain; -- said of pleasure, the world, etc. Pleas'd in the silent shade with empty praise. Pope.