unsatisfactory
adj.not good enough to meet a standard or a requirement. You use this to describe something that is disappointing or fails to do what it should.
adj.failing to meet a required standard, expectation, or set of criteria. Often used in formal assessments or professional feedback to indicate that a result is unacceptable.
“The student's explanation for being late was unsatisfactory.”
“After reviewing the initial draft, the manager found the quality of the research unsatisfactory and requested a complete rewrite.”
“The committee deemed the safety measures unsatisfactory, citing several critical vulnerabilities that had been overlooked during the initial inspection phase.”
Commonly follows linking verbs such as 'be', 'seem', or 'remain'.
Learners often confuse 'unsatisfying' (not giving a feeling of pleasure or fulfillment) with 'unsatisfactory' (not meeting a required standard).
“The lunch is unsatisfactory, an attempt at intimacy that the narrator acknowledges afterwards to have been a mistake.”
From un- + satisfactory.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.