unsayable

Examples

• All

• When anything went, one sensed that a university was a place where one could risk saying the unsayable and debate the undebatable.

• In that moment of grief, her thoughts turned unsayable, trapped in the silence of her pain.

• So creating a space where you can say unsayable things strikes me as really important.

  Triggernometry

• After all, he had spent all his life trying to paint the unsayable; he was trying to paint it still, and he would go on trying, so why try to articulate it in words?

  Fiction book (1991)

• If so, let me add another: one of poetry's chief aims is to illumine the walls of mystery, the inscrutable, the unsayable.

  Academic text (2007)

• Moreover, all three authors attempt to express inner reality by describing outer reality and frequently thematize the human dilemma of trying to say the unsayable.

  Academic text (1993)

• The struggle to reclaim the past in its entirety fails since there remain gaps in the story, gaps of the "unsaid" or, perhaps, the "unsayable." After all is said and done, there are still spheres of silence.

  Academic text (1992)

• The emotions he felt were so deep and intense that they seemed unsayable, beyond the reach of words.

• She grappled with feelings that were unsayable, unable to express the sorrow within her heart.

Synonyms

U

unspeakable

vsunsayable

58 7.2

Too terrible to describe in words

is neutral and can include hard to express things without negative tone

I

ineffable

vsunsayable

• Formal

8 9.5

So great that words cannot describe it

is more general, including hard to express things not only sacred greatness

I

indefinable

vsunsayable

4 6.9

Hard to describe or explain in words

focuses on exactness rather than the simple difficulty of expressing something

I

inexpressible

vsunsayable

3 7.5

A feeling so strong that you cannot describe it in words

can mean very difficult to put into words rather than strictly impossible

U

undefinable

vsunsayable

3 6.8

Hard to describe exactly in words

is about general difficulty to express, not only lack of precise definition

U

unnameable

vsunsayable

1 7.8

Hard to describe in words

uses broader difficulty rather than strict inability to supply a name

U

unnamable

vsunsayable

1 7.7

Too hard to describe in words

focuses on general difficulty to express rather than strict inability to name

U

untellable

vsunsayable

9.9

So great you cannot describe it in words

can mean simply hard to express rather than overwhelmingly extreme

Antonyms

S

sayable

5.8

Possible to put into words and speak

How Expressible

expressible

1 5.3

describable

1 2.7

unsayable

1 8.5

inexpressible

3 7.5

ineffable

• Formal

8 9.5

Surface Forms

Morphology

Etymology