Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Impossible to define, describe, or analyze. See Synonyms at unspeakable.
- n. One that is indefinable.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not definable; incapable of being defined or exactly described; not susceptible of definition: as, an indefinable boundary; an indefinable word; indefinable sensations.
Wiktionary
- adj. That cannot be precisely defined or put into words
- adj. That defies description; indescribable
- n. Anything that cannot be defined.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Incapable of being defined or described; inexplicable.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. not capable of being precisely or readily described; not easily put into words
- adj. defying expression or description
Etymologies
- in- + definable (Wiktionary)
Examples
“[1] Exemplary as defined through critical reception, financial success and a certain indefinable presence as part of popular culture.”
“= “Who cares if the person is right for the job, as long as the person is opposite of what a certain indefinable group of people want.””
Think Progress » Limbaugh: Euphoria Over Alito, A “European” “Married Male”
“Except for his impeccably accented English and a certain indefinable air about his bearing (I always say no one slouches quite as elegantly as an Englishman), an observer might have taken my son for one of the Egyptians among whom he had spent most of his life.”
“Hers was an extreme lithesomeness, and she moved with a certain indefinable airiness, approaching one as down might float or as a bird on noiseless wings.”
“The features, look, air, portrait, the expression indefinable except as a light of outcoming spirit, were those of the man he had helped crucify before the”
“I look for style, structure, prose, originality and a certain indefinable quality that makes me curse and say, “Damn, I wish I’d thought of that.””
“He thought of the unknown as the indefinable beyond to an immediate world that might be quite clearly and exactly known.”
“He thought, it seems to me, of the unknown as the indefinable Beyond of an immediate world that might be quite clearly and definitely known.”
“The demon Ware looked directly and challengingly at Adria with his many-colored eyes, all the colors of which had darkened with some kind of indefinable emotions.”
“We had come to probe its mystery, we had hoped to reduce it to terms of science, but there was always the "indefinable" which held aloof, yet riveted our souls.”
The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘indefinable’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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five syllables
ontogenesis, phylogenesis, concatenation, androgenesis, extra textual, inexorably, spagyrically, apophenia, iatrochemist, monocotyloid, morphological, parthenogenic and 941 more...
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Bram Stoker's Dracula
Words used in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
decadence, emancipation, nostalgia, abounded, modernity, revolution, famine, conservative, privy, vied, nascent, correspondence and 211 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for indefinable.
dailyword The essence of this passed between Jim and Artie during their celebration of Christmas together in "The Night Of The Storm." Sep 28, 2012