1. Incapable of being held against attack.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., VIII. § 60. Having lain so long with such a strength before so vile and untenable a place, without reducing it.
a. 1671. Ld. Fairfax, Mem. (1699), 9. In a council of war the Town was judged untenable.
1769. Robertson, Chas. V., IV. Wks. 1813, V. 418. That ill-provided and untenable fort.
1796. Campaigns 1793–4, I. I. ix. 91. The post …. was abandoned as untenable.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, II. 54. Measures were taken to render the position of the besiegers untenable.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 287. The fire of the Prussian artillery rendered the interior of the works … untenable.
b. fig. (Cf. sense 2.)
1692. Dryden, Juvenal (1697), p. lii. Casaubon … thinks it time to abandon a Post that was untenable. He acknowledges that Persius is obscure in some places.
1765. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, VIII. xxxiv. If there was any one post more untenable than the rest, he would be sure to throw himself into it.
1807. Med. Jrnl., XVII. 534. An impartial retrospect … will … convince Mr. Dawson, that he has occupied untenable ground.
1880. McCarthy, Own Times, lxiii. IV. 429. He withdrew from what he felt to be an untenable position.
c. Incapable of being occupied or retained.
1699. Boyer, Dict. Royal, s.v., His new Lodgings were made in a Moment as untenable as the others.
1721. Amherst, Terræ Filius, No. 40 (1726), 211. Not content with … college-offices, they have lately found out a method of augmenting them with good livings, which, according to statutes and prescription, are untenable together.
1860. Merc. Marine Mag., VII. 291. A ship could lay there in safety when Table bay would be untenable.
1883. Stevenson, Silverado Sq., 5. The site has proved untenable.
2. Incapable of being maintained or supported.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, II. xiii. 268. A Tenet unteinable with truth.
1664. H. More, Apol., 507. I am … far from rejecting or condemning the Opinion of the Schools from being altogether untenable.
1724. Waterland, Farther Vindic. Christ’s Divin., Introd. Their main Scheme appearing so gross, and so untenable, that they … are … ashamed to own it.
1835. Thirlwall, Greece, iii. I. 78. A not untenable hypothesis.
1886. Law Rep., 31 Chanc. Div. 365. The claim is of the most untenable description.
Hence Untenableness.
1833. G. S. Faber, Recapit. Apostasy, 40. The untenableness of the various names … crudely propounded by the wantonness of expositorial licence.
1846. Lewes, Hist. Philos., IV. 95. The untenableness of the theory of innate ideas.
