Worse than precarious

Usage examples of untenable.

Dazed by light and form and colour, his eyes attempted to follow and analyse the geometrically untenable planes and images as he trod apparently through a macrocosm of chaos which only his iron resolution reminded him was the blister floor.

Flute lilt reveals just how untenable their rattish existence had been until the covenant hidden in this little turn of phrase came to release them.

For eighty years that blessed country had thriven and prospered, and that it should all end now, over an issue that was irrelevant to the general welfare of the majority of the people, was untenable to her.

Court has rejected as untenable the contention that a tax on undistributed corporate profits is essentially a penalty rather than a tax or that it is a direct tax on capital and hence is not exempt from the requirement of apportionment.

This advance turned the line which the Germans still held on the Chemin des Dames, and they found it untenable.

Sanson shot at one and missed, then Glasser realized they were in an untenable situation.

This absurdity shows that the hypothesis contains a contradiction which naturally leads to untenable results.

The situation now looked extremely serious, for the Turks, growing bolder, launched a most determined attack on Mansura, and in spite of numerous counter-attacks rapidly made the ridge untenable.

At last the Viceroy of Peru, the Marquess of Castel Fuerte, sent Don Bruno de Zavala with a sufficient army and six thousand Indians from the missions against the usurper Antequera, who fled for refuge to the Franciscan convent in Cordoba, where he remained, till, finding his position quite untenable, he fled to Charcas, where he was arrested, and sent to Lima to await his trial.

Magi would have made our situation untenable in the eyes of everyone, and all were by now so passionately devoting themselves to preparing for war, that I acceptedalso so as not to disappoint the skiapods, the panotians, the blemmyae, and all those other fine people of whom I had become sincerely fond.

Auchinleck decided that this position was untenable, the intercepts kept Rommel up to date with the British changes of mind.

In this case a position which the Boers had been preparing for months, scored with trenches and topped by heavy artillery, had been rendered untenable by a clever flank movement, the total casualties in the whole affair being less than two hundred killed and wounded.

At break of day the Boers discovered that their position had been rendered untenable and withdrew, leaving the road to Lydenburg clear to Buller.

Which leads to a disturbing aspect of the Lawrence-for-governor story: the untenable and queasy position in which it has put this newspaper, and the reporters, columnists and editors who produce it.

The town of Colesberg lies in a basin surrounded by a ring of kopjes, and the possession by us of any one of them would have made the place untenable.