English
Pronunciation
audio|en-us-unspeakable.ogg|Audio (US)
Adjective
en-adj-more
- Incapable of being speak|spoken or uttered; unutterable; ineffable; inexpressible.
#*1855-1882, w:Walt Whitman|Walt Whitman, s:Leaves of Grass|Leaves of Grass, book xv,
#*:The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows.
- Unfit or not permitted to be spoken or described.
#*1916, w:James_Joyce|James Joyce, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, ch. 3,
#*: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.
- Extremely bad or objectionable.
#:an unspeakable fool
#:an unspeakable play
#*1926, w:H.P. Lovecraft|H.P. Lovecraft, s:The Outsider|The Outsider,
#*: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.
Derived terms
unspeakably
unspeakableness
References
R:Webster 1913
R:Dictionary.com
"unspeakable" in Encarta® World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & (P)2007 Microsoft Corporation.
"unspeakable" in the Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus © Wordsmyth 2002.
"unspeakable" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary © Cambridge University Press 2007.
"unspeakable" in Compact Oxford English Dictionary, © Oxford University Press, 2007.
"unspeakable" at Rhymezone © 2006 Datamuse.
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
fr:unspeakable
io:unspeakable
ru:unspeakable
te:unspeakable
vi:unspeakable
zh:unspeakable
| 
