Make Your Point > Archived Issues > TENABLE

Send Make Your Point issues straight to your inbox.

pronounce TENABLE: Say it "TEN uh bull." To hear it, click here. connect this word to others: My mom's dream was to open a wedding chapel. She was ten_____s: she held on tight to that dream and stuck with it. After a lot of work, her dream became tenable: doable, workable, possible, sensible, reasonable, and achievable. She married hundreds of couples at her chapel. Can you recall that word with the blanks up there? Along with today's word, tenable, it comes from the Latin for "hold." (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) definition: The word "tenable" comes from a Latin one, tenere, meaning "to hold, or to keep." In its most literal sense, "tenable" means "able to hold, able to be held, or able to stay held together." Most of the time, we use "tenable" more figuratively. Tenable things are able to remain, or able to keep going--usually because they're logical, reasonable, or practical. grammatical bits: Part of speech: Adjective: "a tenable position;" "Their argument is tenable." Other forms:  Tenably, tenability or tenableness. The opposite, "untenable," is especially useful: "an untenable ambition;" "Their workload is untenable." Its other forms are "untenably" and "untenability" or "untenableness." how to use it: Pick the formal, semi-common word "tenable" when you need to emphasize how something is likely to hold together, or at least unlikely to fall apart. We talk about tenable plans, options, solutions, positions, opinions, prospects, theories, situations, relationships, etc. Although the word "tenable" has a slightly positive tone, it's such a weak way to describe something ("not crumbling down at the slightest poke") that we often use it in a negative way for emphasis: "That method is no longer tenable;" "The prospect became less and less tenable;" "They haven't generated a single tenable idea." examples: "You talk to people in the disability community who say, 'We've been asking to work from home for years and were told it's not tenable.'"    — Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 22 October 2020 "Milly's expenses and debt were growing as the brand tried to expand its e-commerce footprint while continuing to meet its department store obligations. Its founders quietly decided to separate while still living and working together, but the situation was untenable."    — Katherine Rosman, New York Times, 24 October 2020 has this page helped you understand "tenable"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "tenable" without saying "defensible" or "workable." try it out: Think of a situation that got shaky: a situation where you (or someone else) thought, "This isn't working for me. I don't know how long I can keep this up. Things are gonna fall apart." Fill in the blank: "(Some goal or situation) became increasingly untenable." Here's an example from Independent Australia: "Australia’s historical reluctance to have its own foreign policy is becoming increasingly untenable." And here's one from the Nob Hill Gazette: "Many tech companies continued to contract out for boxed lunches or dinner kits... But with no date set for the return of workers to offices, that situation grew increasingly untenable." One more example, from the Seattle Times: "She managed to juggle it all for about three years before she had 'a little bit of an identity crisis.' Being both an artist with a studio practice and an arts administrator organizing group art shows while trying to be the wife of an aspiring rock star became increasingly untenable." If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out. Our game for March is "Yup, that's a real word." Check out the definition of a silly-sounding word--yes, a real one, from the Oxford English Dictionary--and see if you can come up with the word itself. To see the answer, scroll all the way down. Here's an example: "This three-syllable noun ending in the -ship suffix (as in 'friendship' and 'fellowship') means 'skill in traversing snow.'" The answer is "snowmanship." (Yup, that’s a real word!) Try this one today: Is everybody except me already using this word? It seems so useful. It's a two-syllable verb meaning "to throw (someone) off the horse they were riding." review this word: 1. The precise opposite of TENABLE is UNTENABLE, which means A. WILD and UNWIELDY. B. IMPRACTICAL and INDEFENSIBLE. C. OUT OF REACH and UNATTAINABLE. 2. In a cartoon by the artist Obnoxious Rhinoceros, titled "Untenable Bungalow," the bungalow _____. A. pulses with vibrant music B. teeters on the edge of a steep cliff C. glimmers in a dreamy, fairy-filled rainforest Answers to review questions: 1. B 2. B Answer to the game question: Unhorse! Here's Christopher Ness: "the occasion of unhorsing the Pope in England." Someone should have told him about "dispope." a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.