inhospitable.

1. Difficult or unpleasant to live in, enter, or remain in because conditions are harsh.

2. Unfriendly toward visitors or unwilling to offer welcome or help.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• inhospitable terrain
• an inhospitable climate

On the page

Winter turned the plateau into an inhospitable expanse of wind and ice.

Usage notes

Primary category: setting / environment. Forms: Comparative more inhospitable; superlative most inhospitable when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: setting, description. Commonness: moderately common.