Unspeakable

Pronunciation varies by accent · adjective

Meaning

Incapable of being spoken or uttered..

Definitions by Sense

1. Incapable of being spoken or uttered.
2. Impossible to speak about.
3. Unfit or not permitted to be spoken or described.
4. Extremely bad or objectionable.
5. (programming, not comparable) That cannot be referenced in source code, due to having no usable name.
6. Something that cannot or must not be spoken about.

Example Sentences

1855-1882, Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, book xv, The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows.

It is true that during the first week hardly a day passed that Erskine did not address himself to Watt, on the subject of Watt's duties. But in the first week Watt's words had not yet begun to fail him, or Watt's world to become unspeakable.

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.

an unspeakable fool

an unspeakable play

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.

Anyone who goes into a voting booth on November the 8th and comes out saying, “I feel a hundred percent great about what I just did in there!,” is either lying to themselves, or did something unspeakable in that booth! And that means, as uncomfortable as this is, everyone has to own the floors of whoever you vote for, whether they are a lying handsy narcissistic sociopath, a hawkish Wall Street-friendly embodiment of everything that some people can’t stand about politics, an ill-tempered mountain molester with a radical dangerous tax plan that even he can’t defend, or a conspiracy-pandering political neophyte with no clear understanding of how government operates and who once recorded this folk rap about the virtues of bicycling.

an instance of an unspeakable type

Synonyms for unspeakable

Antonyms for unspeakable

Related Words

Word Forms

• more unspeakable
• most unspeakable
• unspeakables

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

Practice and Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions