unspeakable

Examples

• All

• It is unspeakable what they are doing to the people of Gaza.

  Triggernometry

• The survivor recounted unspeakable horrors that haunted her for years.

• I have seen unspeakable things down there.

  The Smurfs 2 (2013)

• Who knows what unspeakable things they do to my little girl?

  The Big Hit (1998)

• Pure evil is when the most unspeakable things happen.

  Jack Be Nimble (2022)

• So these stories allow me to have conversations, to speak the unspeakable that many are afraid to have.

• Ultimately, her family suffered unspeakable and unfixable loss.

  DoctorRamani

• Guatemala's civil war was perhaps the longest and most unspeakable war of modern times.

  Academic text (2005)

• I felt a deep hole inside, as when a family is shattered by some unspeakable calamity.

  Fiction book (1995)

• A sense of meaninglessness, a sense of an alien, horrible, unspeakable but undeniable fear begins to haunt her.

  Academic text (1992)

Synonyms

E

excruciating

vsunspeakable

46 7.9

Causing very strong physical or mental pain

describes the intensity as indescribable emotional or moral badness rather than pain itself

U

unfathomable

vsunspeakable

23 8.6

Very hard to understand or measure how deep something is

concerns extreme badness or intensity rather than difficulty of understanding

I

indescribable

vsunspeakable

21 5.4

So wonderful or strange that words cannot show it

is used for extreme negative or painful things rather than wonderful ones

I

ineffable

vsunspeakable

• Formal

8 9.5

So great that words cannot describe it

is similar but highlights strong negative or painful intensity instead of sacredness

I

indefinable

vsunspeakable

4 6.9

Hard to describe or explain in words

adds a sense of severe or harmful intensity not present in mere vagueness

I

inexpressible

vsunspeakable

3 7.5

A feeling so strong that you cannot describe it in words

adds that the thing is not just hard to describe but is very bad or intense

U

undefinable

vsunspeakable

3 6.8

Hard to describe exactly in words

leans more toward extreme badness or intensity than mere imprecision

U

unutterable

vsunspeakable

• Literature

1 8.9

Too great or strong to put into words

focuses more on negative or harmful intensity rather than general overwhelm

U

unnameable

vsunspeakable

1 7.8

Hard to describe in words

focuses more on extreme negative or intense quality than on naming

U

unsayable

vsunspeakable

1 8.5

Too hard to put into words

emphasizes strong badness or intensity rather than mere difficulty of expression

U

unnamable

vsunspeakable

1 7.7

Too hard to describe in words

is about extreme badness or intensity rather than just missing a name

U

untellable

vsunspeakable

9.9

So great you cannot describe it in words

is used for things that are especially bad or intensely negative

U

unexpressible

vsunspeakable

8.4

So strong or deep that words cannot describe it

stresses that the extreme quality is also morally or painfully bad

Antonyms

S

speakable

1 4.5

Something you can say or put into words

How Bad

unspeakable

58 7.2

horrible

∞ 1.5

terrible

∞ 1.0

bad

12 4.9

unpleasant

215 1.0

Surface Forms

Morphology

Etymology