incognizable

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English

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Etymology

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From in- +‎ cognizable.

Adjective

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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

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Translations

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