Unmountable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Characterizing an item or system that resists removal or separation from its original location
2. Not able to be taken off or disconnected from its place or position
3. Capable of resisting any attempt to be separated or removed from where it is fixed

Etymology: "Unmountable" is a plain English compound: the prefix "un-" ("not") attached to "mountable," meaning "able to be mounted." The second element works in two ways. Its ancestry runs back through Old French "monter" ("to go up, mount") and Vulgar Latin "montare," built from Latin "mons" ("mountain"), so the root is the same one that gives "mount" its sense of climbing. The "-able" ending came into English through Old French from Latin "-abilis," which attaches to verbs to mean "capable of being" that action. The word is therefore a mix of native and borrowed parts: an Old English "un-" fused onto a verb that arrived via French, with the Latin suffix carried along inside it. Its sense of "resisting removal" grows from the physical act of fixing something in place, so a thing that cannot be lifted off its base is "unmountable" in the sense of not capable of being mounted onto or taken off its fixing.

Synonyms: insurmountable, impossible, unattainable, unreachable, inaccessible

Antonyms: surmountable, attainable, achievable, reachable, accessible