uncountable

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

un- +‎ countable

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ʌnˈkaʊntəbəl/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Adjective[edit]

uncountable (not comparable)

  1. So many as to be incapable of being counted.
    The reasons for our failure were as uncountable as the grains of sand on a beach.
  2. (mathematics) Incapable of being put into one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers or any subset thereof.
    Cantor’s “diagonal proof” shows that the set of real numbers is uncountable.
  3. (grammar, of a noun) That cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and therefore usually takes no plural form. Example: information.
    Many languages do not distinguish countable nouns from uncountable nouns.
    One meaning in law of the usually uncountable noun "information" is used in the plural and is countable.

Synonyms[edit]

Antonyms[edit]

Hypernyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Noun[edit]

uncountable (plural uncountables)

  1. (grammar) An uncountable noun.
    • 1988, Anna Wierzbicka, The Semantics of Grammar, page 440:
      But inherent uncountables such as 'stuffs' can be conceptualized in two different ways, depending on whether they are viewed in terms of quantity or in terms of quality.

See also[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=uncountable&oldid=75666925"