indescribable

From in- +‎ describe +‎ -able.

• IPA^(key): /ɪndɪˈskɹaɪbəbl̩/

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• Hyphenation: in‧de‧scri‧ba‧ble

indescribable (comparative more indescribable, superlative most indescribable)

1. Impossible (or very difficult) to describe.

   He proved it with indescribable mathematics.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, OCLC 1167497017:

     Presently the men set up the melancholy little chant that I had heard on the first night when we were captured in the whaleboat, and the effect produced by their voices was very curious, and quite indescribable.

   • 1906 January–October, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale, London: Methuen & Co., […], published 1907, OCLC 270548466; The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Collection of British Authors; 3995), copyright edition, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1907, OCLC 1107573959, page 15:

     But there was also about him an indescribable air which no mechanic could have acquired in the practice of his handicraft however dishonestly exercised: [...] the air of moral nihilism common to keepers of gambling hells and disorderly houses; [...]

2. Exceeding all description.

   Our hotel had an indescribable view of the Bay of Naples.

   • 1838, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Duty and Inclination, volume III, London: Henry Colburn, page 182:

     The time was when, had such an idea entered her mind, it would have been torture indescribable and agony the most intense; but then, subdued as was the usual warmth of her temperament, an awful suspension seemed to hold her feelings in control.

• undescribable
• ineffable
• See also Thesaurus:indescribable

• describable

• indescribability
• indescribably

• unspeakable

• indescribable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• indescribable in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911