How to Use inoperable in a Sentence

inoperable

adjective

• The device makes the car inoperable when a key is not used to start it.
• Mold was found on a wedge of cheese inside an inoperable reach-in cooler.
  — Veronica Fernandez-Alvarado may 22, Sacbee.com, 22 May 2026
• Police learned that the man’s brakes were inoperable by the time police pulled him over.
  — Darcie Moran, Detroit Free Press, 25 Aug. 2020
• All five of the business’ shrimp boats were rendered inoperable by damage from the storm.
  — New York Times, 1 Feb. 2022
• Cars were found to be frozen and inoperable, and as of Wednesday, crews were working through the ice.
  — Taylor Ardrey, USA TODAY, 21 Feb. 2025
• The green pump jack stood inoperable on a recent visit to the farm, rust eating through the metal.
  — Mark Olalde, ProPublica, 6 Aug. 2024
• An oven in the kitchen by the three-compartment sink and a fryer in the dry storage room were inoperable.
  — Sacbee.com, 19 Sep. 2025
• Firearms on display at the event are inoperable and none are actually sold at it.
  — Lisa Marie Pane, USA TODAY, 20 Jan. 2020
• Firearms on display at the event are inoperable and none are actually sold at it.
  — Lisa Marie Pane, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Jan. 2020
• Kiosks were left inoperable for long periods of time.
  — Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
• Huge numbers of men were swept up in the two-week-long raid, which left the hospital destroyed and inoperable.
  — Mick Krever, CNN, 24 Oct. 2024
• The bag handle broke and is inoperable.
  — Christopher Elliott, Mercury News, 9 Mar. 2026
• In the air for the first leg of the flight, Mock discovered that her long-range radio was inoperable.
  — Lucia Cheng, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Aug. 2022
• Bronin had noted in a letter to the council that more than half of the department’s stun guns were inoperable.
  — Jenna Carlesso, Courant Community, 29 June 2018
• Countless inoperable kiosks remain in front of 7-Eleven stores to this day.
  — Janko Roettgers, The Verge, 5 July 2024
• The 6-year-old boy had been fighting an inoperable brain tumor for 10 months.
  — Liz Szabo, USA TODAY, 14 Sep. 2022
• Around then, his father sold an inoperable Dodge Dart.
  — Daniel Miller, Los Angeles Times, 6 Jan. 2026
• After that, the belt moved but the screen still froze and is inoperable, despite several hard resets.
  — Christopher Elliott, courant.com, 23 Aug. 2019
• After that, the belt moved but the screen still froze and is inoperable, despite several hard resets.
  — Christopher Elliott, King Features Syndicate, The Mercury News, 25 Aug. 2019
• But those who paid for and still use their Car Thing are annoyed the device will become inoperable.
  — Emily Price, PCMAG, 25 May 2024
• When seized by Detroit police, the van was inoperable.
  — Nushrat Rahman, Freep.com, 28 Jan. 2026
• Due to a malfunction, the scoreboard was inoperable throughout the game, and the time was kept on the field by game officials.
  — Mike Gegenheimer | Contributing Writer, NOLA.com, 14 Nov. 2020
• Few such drugs are approved now, but the approach may become a new way to treat patients with other hard-to-reach or inoperable cancers.
  — Carla K. Johnson, chicagotribune.com, 4 June 2021
• But the hackers' real goal was to delete the data and render the state computers inoperable.
  — Michael Loria, USA TODAY, 27 June 2024
• Loop said the cars that remain on the property are not registered and are inoperable, Fox said.
  — Justin Sayers, The Courier-Journal, 3 Jan. 2018
• Now, even for those with inoperable, locally advanced disease, there's new hope.
  — Carolyn Gusoff, CBS News, 20 Feb. 2026
• But they could still be rendered inoperable if the RTK signal dropped.
  — Anthony Karcz, Forbes.com, 8 Apr. 2025
• It was meant to be part of a pair with Longjiang-1, but its sibling malfunctioned and became inoperable.
  — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 6 Feb. 2019
• Of the remaining kiosks, 40 were inoperable, and the status of five was unknown.
  — Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.com, 16 Aug. 2025
• These kits fit within the new law, which in effect requires the gun to be opened up and made temporarily inoperable to change the magazine.
  — Zusha Elinson and Cameron McWhirter, WSJ, 21 June 2019