irrecognizable

English

Alternative forms

• irrecognisable

Etymology

ir- +‎ recognizable

Adjective

irrecognizable (comparative more irrecognizable, superlative most irrecognizable)

1. (archaic, rare) Unable to be recognized.
   • 1850, Thomas Carlyle, "The Stump Orator" in Latter Day Pamphlets:

     The immortal gods are there (quite irrecognizable under these disguises), and also the lowest broken valets.

   • 1902, "Judge Endlich on Early Life in Berks," Reading Eagle (USA), 15 March, p. 11 (retrieved 26 Aug. 2010):

     [T]here remains no trace of their having ever existed—outside of course of the family names which are now preserved, though some of them in an almost irrecognizable form.

   • c. 1933 Clark Ashton Smith, "The Light from Beyond" in The White Sybil and Other Stories, p. 142 of 2005 edition:

     The loamy ground on which I lay, the scattered fragments of the cairn beside me, and the rocks and junipers, were irrecognizable as if they had belonged to some other planet than ours.

Synonyms

• unrecognizable

Derived terms

• irrecognizability
• irrecognizably