unintelligibly
- adverb
- /ˌʌnɪnˈtɛlɪdʒəbli/
- Mike mumbled unintelligibly into the pillow and rolled over.
- mutter unintelligibly
- mumble unintelligibly
Examples
-
Hagar asked him questions, and he responded by jerking his head or mumbling unintelligibly.
Fiction book (1996) -
Apart from that, the news was unintelligibly weird, full of people, places, words, and countries he had never heard of.
Fiction book (1998) -
Danny lay on the sofa with his eyes closed and muttered unintelligibly.
Fiction book (1998) -
If you had one of the writing/coloring assignments, you could literally see yourself deteriorating; those who had to say something or other had little idea and would just begin to ramble on unintelligibly most of the time.
Blog text (10) -
However, on the fourth afternoon, she was suddenly unable to keep Helen's face distinct from the sights themselves; her lips widened as she bent down over the bed, and she began to gabble unintelligibly like the rest.
Academic text (1998) -
He was speaking so quickly that his words came out unintelligibly.
-
The instructions were written unintelligibly, making it hard for anyone to follow them.
-
During the lecture, the professor's strong accent made his explanations sound unintelligibly to many students.
Synonyms
It is very hard to understand
In a way that hides what someone feels and is hard to understand
Not clear or hard to understand
So unclear that people cannot read or understand it
In a way people cannot read or understand
Antonyms
How Understandable
Surface Forms
Morphology
unintelligibly = unintelligible (transparent) = un + intelligible + ly
The adverb is formed by adding the productive suffix '-ly' to 'unintelligible', so its meaning is directly 'in an unintelligible manner'.
Etymology
Unintelligibly starts with un- meaning 'not' and has the root intelligible meaning 'able to be understood', the same root as intelligence and intelligent. So, unintelligibly means 'in a way that cannot be understood'.