Dictionary

unscalable en · ADJ

Etymology

From un- + scalable.

Meanings

1. (not-comparable) Not scalable, that cannot be climbed.
   • […] Remember, sir, my liege, The kings your ancestors, together with The natural bravery of your isle, which stands As Neptune’s park, ribbed and paled in With rocks unscalable and roaring waters, With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats, But suck them up to the topmast. […] 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
   • The other end of their promenade was closed by a lofty and almost unscaleable precipice,the abode of hundreds of sea-fowl of different kinds […] 1822, [Walter Scott], chapter II, in The Pirate. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC:
   • 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, I. Of Our Spiritual Strivings, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.
2. (not-comparable) Not scalable, that cannot be changed in scale.
   • The idea has its detractors. Skeptics argue the whole idea is unscalable, and that large vertical farms would be insatiable consumers of energy to keep the plants lit, healthy, and harvested […] 2013 January 7, Patrick Metzger, “Public Works: Vertical Farming”, in Torontoist:
   • The result is a marketplace where low-revenue companies (say zero to $2 million per annum) are attracting valuations in the tens of millions of dollars and raising too much money. Most of these businesses will turn out to be poorly run, not special, unscalable, and will not deliver negative returns. 2016 March 7, Adir Shiffman, “Beware a ‘barbell bubble’ in tech as investor demand outstrips startup supply”, in The Australian Financial Review:

Forms

Deriveds

unscalably · unscalability