incognizable

English

Etymology

in- +‎ cognizable

Adjective

incognizable (comparative more incognizable, superlative most incognizable)

1. Not cognizable; incapable of being recognised.
   • 1658, Thomas Saintserf (translator), Entertainments of the Cours: or, Academical Conversations, compiled by Melchior de Marmet, London, p. 104,^[1]

     A dead Body is always incognizable, not only because it is ordinarily changed, but because it neither speaks, nor acts; and for that the qualities of its Soul, which we should know, are departed with her, and have left nothing but a trunk, and a lump without motion.

   • 1799, William Tooke, View of the Russian Empire during the Reign of Catharine II and to the close of the present Century‎^[2], London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Book 2, p. 455:

     The lettish race […] was not a primitive stock, as the finnish, the germanic, or slavonian, but a distinct branch, now become incognizable, of the Slavi […]

   • 1855, Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Psychology‎^[3], London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, Part 2, Chapter 13, § 62, p. 233:

     […] if therefore position is, to the nascent intelligence, incognizable except as the position of something that produces an impression on the organism; how is it possible for the idea of position ever to be dissociated from that of body?

   • 1922, E. E. Cummings, chapter 7, in The Enormous Room‎^[4], New York: Boni and Liveright, page 153:

     All this time the incognizable nouveau was smoking slowly and calmly, and looking at nothing at all with his black buttonlike eyes.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:incomprehensible

Translations

incapable of being recognised.

• Bulgarian: непознаваем (bg) (nepoznavaem)