indescribable
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From in- + describe + -able.
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]indescribable (comparative more indescribable, superlative most indescribable)
- Impossible (or very difficult) to describe.
- He proved it with indescribable mathematics.
- 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
- Presently the men set up the melancholy little chant that I had heard on the first night when we were captured in the whaleboat, and the effect produced by their voices was very curious, and quite indescribable.
- 1906 January–October, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale, London: Methuen & Co., […], published 1907, →OCLC; The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Collection of British Authors; 3995), copyright edition, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1907, →OCLC, page 15:
- But there was also about him an indescribable air which no mechanic could have acquired in the practice of his handicraft however dishonestly exercised: [...] the air of moral nihilism common to keepers of gambling hells and disorderly houses; [...]
- Exceeding all description.
- Our hotel had an indescribable view of the Bay of Naples.
- 1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XIV, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 182:
- The time was when, had such an idea entered her mind, it would have been torture indescribable and agony the most intense; but then, subdued as was the usual warmth of her temperament, an awful suspension seemed to hold her feelings in control.
Synonyms
[edit]Antonyms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]impossible, or very difficult to describe
|
exceeding all description
|
See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “indescribable”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “indescribable”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.