unfit

comparative unfitter · comparative more unfit · superlative unfittest · superlative most unfit

1. Not fit; not having the correct requirements.

   Jack cannot run, making him unfit for the track team.

   3 more examples

   The latter engine was found unfit to take its return working at 5.35 p.m. from Luton, and No. 45616, Malta G.C., was provided by Kentish Town as substitute.

   1953 April, “Notes and News: Locomotive Notes: London Midland Region”, in Railway Magazine, page 284

   On September 7, 1993, Sharon Bottoms lost custody of her two-year-old son to her own mother. A Virginia judge found that her sexual relationship with her lover was immoral and rendered her an unfit parent.

   1993 October, Nancy D. Polikoff, “Lesbian And Gay Parenting: What's At Stake?”, in Gay Community News, page 3

   Wading through history, he noted that some eugenicists believed that the “distinction between the fit and the unfit could be drawn along racial lines,” and others would define a person as “feeble-minded.”

   2019 May 28, Ariane de Vogue, “Why Clarence Thomas wrote over a dozen pages on eugenics”, in CNN

   Synonyms: inapt, unsuitable, bad, discommensurate, improper, inappropriate, malapropos, inapt · Antonyms: fit, suitable

2. Not fit, not having a good physical demeanor.

   I've become so unfit after stopping cycling to town.

   Synonyms: out of shape · Antonyms: fit, in shape

3. oftenUnsuitable for a particular purpose.

   Sadly, the station that proves to be the busiest - Blackpool Pleasure Beach - is unfit for purpose. It possesses a tiny canopy back from the platform that offers little in the way of shelter or amenities, other than a couple of benches.

   2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 56

present singular third person unfits · participle present unfitting · participle past unfitted · past unfitted

1. To make unfit; to render unsuitable, spoil, disqualify.

   This life entirely unfits you for general practice.

   2018, Anna Rogers, With Them Through Hell, →ISBN, page 403

   3 more examples

   He [...] added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kings before him.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   These preoccupations unfitted the soldiers for the defence of the frontier, and permitted vigorous incursions of Germans form the north and Persians from the east.

   1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.30

   The Select Committee on Transport (Metropolitan Area) of 1919 concluded the following: "Trains were crowded not merely to excess, but almost to danger point. The crush in the 'peak hours' not only overloaded public conveyances, but subjected travellers - particularly the old, the feeble and women - to an amount of suffering, the effects of which often unfitted them temporarily for their ordinary duties."

   2020 April 8, Dr David Turner, “How railway staff were conduits and victims of a pandemic”, in Rail, page 31