unspeakable

English

Pronunciation

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Adjective

unspeakable (comparative more unspeakable, superlative most unspeakable)

1. Incapable of being spoken or uttered; unutterable; ineffable; inexpressible.
   • 1855-1882, Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, book xv,

     The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows.

2. Unfit or not permitted to be spoken or described.
   • 1916, James Joyce, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, ch. 3,

     The miser will remember his hoard of gold, the robber his ill-gotten wealth, the angry and revengeful and merciless murderers their deeds of blood and violence in which they revelled, the impure and adulterous the unspeakable and filthy pleasures in which they delighted.

3. Extremely bad or objectionable.

   an unspeakable fool

   an unspeakable play

   • 1926, H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider,

     Yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more.

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:indescribable

Derived terms

• unspeakably
• unspeakableness

Translations

incapable of being spoken or uttered

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 說不得 (cmn), 说不得 (cmn) (shuōbude)

• Czech: nevýslovný (cs) m
• Finnish: sanomaton (fi), sanoinkuvaamaton (fi)
• French: indicible (fr)

• German: unsäglich (de)
• Japanese: 言い知れぬ (ja) (いいしれぬ, iishirenu), 口では言えない (ja) (くちではいえない, kuchi dewa ienai)
• Russian: непередаваемый (ru) (neperedavájemyj), несказанный (ru) (neskazánnyj), неописуемый (ru) (neopisújemyj)
• Telugu: చెప్పరాని (te) (chepparaani)

unfit to be described

• Finnish: sopimaton (fi), saastainen (fi)

extremely bad

• Finnish: käsittämätön (fi)

References

• unspeakable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “unspeakable” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, v1.0.1, Lexico Publishing Group, 2006.
• "unspeakable" in Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & (P)2007 Microsoft Corporation.
• "unspeakable" in the Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus © Wordsmyth 2002.
• "unspeakable" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary © Cambridge University Press 2007.
• "unspeakable" in Compact Oxford English Dictionary, © Oxford University Press, 2007.
• "unspeakable" at Rhymezone © 2006 Datamuse.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.

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Scots

Etymology

un- + speak + -able

Adjective

unspeakable (comparative mair unspeakable, superlative maist unspeakable)

1. unspeakable