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Glite Dictionary
📄 No known date 💔 Not wanted romantically
undatable

undatable

8.6
People cannot say when it was made
  • adjective
  • /ˌʌnˈdeɪtəbl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : indatable
  • Due to the lack of records, many of the archaeological finds were deemed undatable.

Examples

  • The painting's faded signature made it undatable, leaving art historians puzzled about its origin.

  • The ancient artifact was so worn and damaged that it had become undatable.

  • Undatable.

    John Tucker Must Die (2006)

Synonyms

undateable
vsundatable
  • Specialized
7.4

Too damaged to tell when something was made

has identical meaning but is the alternative spelling with an extra e

Antonyms

datable
1 5.7

You can tell when something was made or happened

How Dateable

datable
1 5.7
undatable
  • Specialized
8.6

Surface Forms

undatable positive

Morphology

undatable = datable (transparent) = un + date + able

Formed by prefixing 'un-' to 'datable' (date + -able); the negative meaning is regular and easily derived from the base.

Etymology

Undatable is made of un- 'not', date 'a time', and -able 'can be'. So something undatable cannot be given a date, which is why scientists use the word for items whose age cannot be found.