🌌 Too many to count 📚 Cannot be counted 🔢 Too large to count

uncountable

1 3.9

A noun that cannot be counted and has no plural form

adjective
/ʌnˈkaʊntəbl/

Specialized

: no contable

Water is an uncountable noun, so we say 'much water' instead of 'many waters.'

Examples

Thirdly, I intend to conduct some research ("research" is an uncountable noun and you cannot use it in plural form) in a new way, which focuses on the combination of remote sensing and InSAR technology.

Blog text (10)
Honoring this remarkable quality, I would not presume to enumerate his enormous (and uncountable) contributions to our field.

Academic text (1994)
Uncountable tomatoes were crushed and boiled down into puree, stored in corked bottles sealed with tar.

Blog text (4)
In this recipe, you will need an uncountable amount of flour to make the dough.
I have uncountable admiration for artists who can create such masterpieces.

Antonyms

countable

1 2.9

Present as separate things you can number, like an apple or a book

Surface Forms

uncountable positive

Morphology

uncountable = countable (transparent) = un + count + able

Formed by the productive negation prefix 'un-' added to 'countable', so the meaning 'not able to be counted' is directly derivable.

Etymology

Uncountable comes from un- ('not') and count ('to number'), so it literally means 'not able to be counted'. In grammar it names nouns like 'rice', 'music' or 'information' that you cannot count one by one or make plural, which is why you say 'some rice' not 'rices'.