Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Unreasonable for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Today's word is "unreasonable" — an adjective, pronounced /ʌnˈriː.zən.ə.bəl/, with the stress on 'rea'.
Narrator: Unreasonable means not guided by good sense — unfair, excessive, or beyond what is acceptable or rational.
Narrator: In plain English, something unreasonable is over the top or unfair — an unreasonable demand, an unreasonable price.
Narrator: It can describe a person who won't listen to reason, or a thing that's simply too much — too costly, too demanding.
Narrator: The word combines 'un-', meaning not, with 'reasonable', from 'reason', via Latin 'ratio', meaning calculation or judgement.
Narrator: So at its core, unreasonable means lacking reason — not weighed by fair, sensible judgement.
Narrator: It is common in everyday disputes and in law, where a 'reasonable person' is a key standard of fairness.
Narrator: In tone it is everyday but firm — a measured way to call something unfair, excessive, or out of proportion.
Narrator: So remember: unreasonable means not guided by good sense — unfair, excessive, or beyond what's acceptable.
Speaker A: They want the whole project finished by Friday — honestly, that's a completely unreasonable deadline.
Speaker B: That does sound unreasonable — far too much to ask in so little time.
Speaker A: Exactly. And the price they quoted was unreasonable too — nearly double the going rate.
Speaker B: Right, there it means excessive. A common mistake is confusing 'unreasonable' with simply 'difficult'.
Speaker A: Ah — a difficult task is just hard, but an unreasonable one is unfair or excessive?
Speaker B: Exactly. Something can be difficult yet perfectly reasonable. Unreasonable adds that unfairness.
Speaker A: Good distinction. And it describes people too — 'he's being completely unreasonable'.
Speaker B: Yes — refusing to listen to sense. The opposite of fair-minded.
Speaker A: Close synonyms? 'Excessive', 'unfair', and 'irrational'.
Speaker B: Though 'irrational' suggests no logic at all, while 'unreasonable' is more about being unfair or over the top.
Speaker A: So unreasonable means unfair, excessive, or beyond sense.
Speaker B: More than is fair to ask.
Speaker B: Let's use "unreasonable" in AI prompts — it is precise for setting limits and validation: catching excessive values, rejecting unfair inputs, flagging anything out of acceptable bounds.
Speaker A: So unreasonable in a prompt means flag or reject values that are excessive or out of bounds?
Speaker B: Exactly. For validation, you'd write:
Prompt: Add validation that rejects unreasonable inputs in my booking form. Block unreasonable dates far in the past or future, and an unreasonable guest count over the room's limit, with a clear message explaining each limit.
Speaker B: The word unreasonable defines the rule by fairness — not just wrong, but beyond sensible bounds.
Speaker A: Very clear. What about rate limiting?
Speaker B: Try this:
Prompt: Protect my API from unreasonable usage. Set a fair rate limit per user, and block any client making an unreasonable number of requests per minute, returning a polite message rather than letting it overload the server.
Speaker A: So it guards against excess.
Speaker B: Right. For pricing:
Prompt: Add a sanity check that flags unreasonable prices before they save. If a product price is unreasonable — negative, zero, or wildly above the category average — warn the admin to confirm before publishing.
Speaker A: What about query limits?
Speaker B: Here you go:
Prompt: Stop unreasonable database queries in my reporting tool. Reject any request for an unreasonable date range, like ten years of data at once, and suggest a sensible smaller range to keep the report fast.
Speaker A: Could unreasonable guard file uploads too?
Speaker B: Yes:
Prompt: Validate uploads and block unreasonable files. Reject an unreasonable file size over the limit and unsupported types, with a friendly message telling the user the acceptable size and formats.
Speaker A: So "unreasonable" means excessive or out-of-bounds values to catch.
Speaker B: Exactly — a precise word that grounds limits and validation in fair, sensible bounds.
Unreasonable — meaning in Arabic & definition More U courses GL Dictionary