Dissatisfied or unsatisfied?
dissatisfied is an adjective meaning “Feeling or displaying disappointment or a lack of contentment”; unsatisfied is an adjective meaning “Not satisfied, especially with the quantity of something; dissatisfied…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) dissatisfied is about 2.1 times as common as unsatisfied.
What is the difference between dissatisfied and unsatisfied?
| dissatisfied | unsatisfied | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb | adjective |
| Meaning | Feeling or displaying disappointment or a lack of contentment Not satisfied (e.g. with the quality of something) | Not satisfied, especially with the quantity of something; dissatisfied; uncontented Not gratified; not having been fulfilled or met |
| Example | We offer refunds to dissatisfied customers | none recorded |
| Pronunciation | /dɪsˈsætɪsˌfaɪd/ | not recorded |
| In writing | 2.0 times per million words | about once in every 1 million words |
Sources: dissatisfied and unsatisfied in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of dissatisfied and unsatisfied
dissatisfied
- 1
Feeling or displaying disappointment or a lack of contentment
- 2
Not satisfied (e.g. with the quality of something)
We offer refunds to dissatisfied customers
unsatisfied
- 1
Not satisfied, especially with the quantity of something; dissatisfied; uncontented
- 2
Not gratified; not having been fulfilled or met
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, dissatisfied or unsatisfied?
dissatisfied appears 2.0 times per million words; unsatisfied about once in every 1 million words.
dissatisfied 2.0 times per million wordsunsatisfied about once in every 1 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search dissatisfied vs unsatisfied?
“dissatisfied vs unsatisfied” is searched about 880 times a month on Google and 40 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“unsatisfied vs dissatisfied”, “dissatisfied or unsatisfied”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.