unintelligibility
- noun
- /ˌʌnɪnˌtɛlɪdʒəˈbɪlɪti/
- The unintelligibility of the instructions left everyone confused about what to do next.
Examples
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The unintelligibility of his speech made it hard for the audience to follow his main points.
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Many students struggle with the unintelligibility of the complex mathematical concepts presented in class.
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The relationship, erotic or loving, between the couple is located precisely at the site of unintelligibility.
Academic text (2017) -
Everyone knows that complicatedness = unintelligibility, especially when money is the protagonist.
Blog text (31) -
I remember the telegrams, the vacancy of my mother's absence for a week or so, the unintelligibility of a death so remote.
Academic text (1990) -
That form focuses on the question of the allegedly increasing unintelligibility of work in the main fields of the humanities to any but the adepts of the relevant discipline.
Academic text (1999) -
The unintelligibility of sacred ritual languages suggests, Tambiah argues, that the words are used differently than in normal communication; the magic words are conceived as things, causes, and acts rather than as vehicles of meaning.
Academic text (1996) -
This kind or level of emptiness and unintelligibility is compatible with the individual speaking and acting with others apparently intelligibly, and this is part of what makes it so intractable and infuriating.
Academic text (2000) -
The seeming unintelligibility of their friendship keeps it uncoopted by the contents and contexts of colonialism and anticolonial nationalism.
Academic text (2016) -
There is merely the external form of a society and a veil of apparent concord beneath which lies an unassessed degree of isolation, unintelligibility, discord, and force.
Academic text (2000)
Synonyms
Speech or writing that is unclear and hard to follow
A feeling of not being able to understand something
A state where something is very hard to understand
A quality that you cannot understand or know the reasons for
A quality that makes facts and events impossible to find out or fully understand
A state when something cannot be explained or understood
A difficulty understanding handwriting, signs, or codes
A lack of clear, organized speech or writing that makes it hard to follow
Very hard to understand because the ideas are unclear or complicated
The quality of being very difficult to understand because it is complex
You cannot easily understand or picture it in your mind
Writing that is hard to understand or enjoy
Information or speech that is hard to understand and causes confusion
A lack of understanding of instructions or ideas
Antonyms
How Understandable
Surface Forms
Morphology
unintelligibility = unintelligible (transparent) = un + intelligible + ity
Formed from 'un' + 'intelligible' + '-ity'; the meaning ('the state of being not understandable') is directly derived from these parts.
Etymology
Unintelligibility comes from the prefix un- meaning 'not' and intelligible meaning 'able to be understood', the same root as intelligent. So unintelligibility is the state of being 'not able to be understood', which is why we use it for speech or writing that is very hard or impossible to follow.