Unretainable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Incapable of being kept or held onto; not maintainable in memory or possession; unable to be retained or held back from release or loss
2. Describing something that cannot be preserved or remembered; not possible to maintain or hold onto effectively; lacking the capacity to be kept or controlled
3. Denoting items or information that cannot be held or stored; challenging to keep in one’s mind or possession; impossible to retain or secure from being lost

Etymology: "Unretainable" is a plain formation: the prefix "un-", meaning "not," attached to "retainable," which is itself built from "retain" plus the suffix "-able," meaning "capable of being." Together they describe something that cannot be kept, held back, or preserved. The pattern is an ordinary one in English, so the word carries no hidden history of its own; its meaning follows directly from its parts. The root "retain" entered English from Old French "retenir," which descends from Latin "retinere," meaning "to hold back" or "to keep hold of." Its sense of keeping something in one's possession or memory developed from that physical idea of holding fast, so the modern sense of information that slips away from the mind is a short step from the original image of a grip that fails.

Synonyms: irretrievable, unrecoverable

Antonyms: retainable, recoverable