indescribable
adj/ɪndɪˈskɹaɪbəbl̩/
Etymology From in- + describe + -able.
1
Impossible (or very difficult) to describe.
- He proved it with indescribable mathematics.
- The beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can understand the intense excitement I experienced when I at length captured it.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co.:
2 more examples
- 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.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
- 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; [...]1906 January–October, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Collection of British Authors; 3995), copyright edition, London: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1907, →OCLC, page 15:
2
Exceeding all description.
- Our hotel had an indescribable view of the Bay of Naples.
- 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.1838, [Letitia Elizabeth] Landon (indicated as editor), chapter XIV, in Duty and Inclination: […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 182:
- Synonyms
- undescribable, ineffable, indescribable, indefinable, indicible, inexpressible, untold, inenarrable, inutterable, nameless, termless, undefinable, unnameable, unspecifiable, unspeakable, unutterable
- Antonyms
- describable, common, definable, expected, expressible, nameable, normal, specifiable
- Derived terms
- indescribableness
- Related terms
- indescribability, indescribably, unspeakable, lost for words, incomprehensible, innumerable