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UNINTELLIGIBLE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Hard or impossible to understand
Synonyms:
opaque; unintelligible
Classified under:
Similar:
incomprehensible; uncomprehensible (difficult to understand)
Derivation:
unintelligibility (nonsense that is simply incoherent and unintelligible)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Poorly articulated or enunciated, or drowned by noise
Example:
unintelligible speech
Classified under:
Similar:
slurred; thick (spoken as if with a thick tongue)
Also:
incomprehensible; uncomprehensible (difficult to understand)
Antonym:
intelligible (well articulated or enunciated, and loud enough to be heard distinctly)
Derivation:
unintelligibility (incomprehensibility as a consequence of being unintelligible)
Context examples:
Having been converted from text into code so as to be unintelligible to unauthorized parties.
(Encrypted, NCI Thesaurus)
One was the same as the tattoo mark, Billy Bones his fancy; then there was Mr. W. Bones, mate, No more rum, Off Palm Key he got itt, and some other snatches, mostly single words and unintelligible.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The conversations were miles beyond Jo's comprehension, but she enjoyed it, though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods, the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms, and the only thing 'evolved from her inner consciousness' was a bad headache after it was all over.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Dorothy, meanwhile, no less struck by your appearance, gazes on you in great agitation, and drops a few unintelligible hints.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Their speech, though unintelligible to us, was fluent among themselves, and as they pointed to each other and uttered the word Accala many times over, we gathered that this was the name of the nation.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Both became overshadowed by a new and indefinable horror; and when I awoke—or rather when I shook off the lethargy that bound me in my chair—my whole frame thrilled with objectless and unintelligible fear.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She knew that Mr. Yates was in general thought to rant dreadfully; that Mr. Yates was disappointed in Henry Crawford; that Tom Bertram spoke so quick he would be unintelligible; that Mrs. Grant spoiled everything by laughing; that Edmund was behindhand with his part, and that it was misery to have anything to do with Mr. Rushworth, who was wanting a prompter through every speech.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Forms leaned together in the taxis as they waited, and voices sang, and there was laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlined unintelligible gestures inside.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
