Unkillable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Incapable of being destroyed or defeated; impossible to kill or eliminate; exhibiting remarkable durability or resilience
2. Resistant to death or destruction by any means; unable to be overcome or terminated; possessing an extraordinary ability to survive or persist
3. Not subject to dying or ceasing to exist; immune to fatal harm or eradication; demonstrating an unbeatable or indestructible nature

Etymology: "Unkillable" is a plain English compound built from two existing parts: the prefix "un-", meaning "not," and "killable," which is itself "kill" plus the suffix "-able," meaning "capable of being." The prefix "un-" comes down from Old English, where it has been used for negation since the earliest English texts, so the word needs no foreign borrowing to explain it. The "kill" at its core has a more tangled past. Its ancestry runs through Proto-Germanic and is generally thought to have a Middle English origin in the sense of "to strike, to hit," a meaning that the verb has since narrowed to "cause death." The suffix "-able" arrived through Old French from Latin "-abilis," where it attached to verbs to mean "able to be done." Because "killable" and "unkillable" are both transparent formations, the word's meaning follows directly from its parts: something that cannot be made to die or be destroyed. Its use tends toward the figurative, describing people, teams, or ideas that seem to survive every attack.

Synonyms: invincible, indestructible, immortal, inextinguishable, unconquerable

Antonyms: killable, mortal, vulnerable, perishable