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Glite Dictionary
😶 Too strong for words 🤐 Impossible to say 🙏 Too sacred to say
unutterable

unutterable

9.1
Very hard or impossible to say correctly
  • adjective
  • /ʌnˈʌtərəbəl/
translation icon : inpronunciable
  • He plugged his mouth with the hideous food sludge, and upon devouring the unutterable contents of his plate, he abandoned his cutlery and thrust his arm into the terrible neck of the ungodly bottle.

Examples

  • The emotion he felt during the ceremony was so intense that it was unutterable, overwhelming him completely.

  • The pain of losing her beloved pet was unutterable, leaving her speechless and heartbroken.

  • He faced an unutterable fear as he stood before the vast, dark forest.

Synonyms

unpronounceable
vsunutterable
4 7.9

Very hard to say correctly

includes sequences too, so applies to longer sound groups

Antonyms

utterable
6.7

Can be said out loud

Compounds

unutterable pain
  • Literature
8.6

A feeling of pain too strong to describe in words

How Pronounceable

unutterable
9.1

Surface Forms

unutterable positive
unutterabler comparative
unutterablest superlative

Morphology

unutterable = utterable (transparent) = un + utter + able

Formed by prefixing 'un-' to 'utterable', yielding 'not able to be uttered' which straightforwardly matches the sense of being impossible or very difficult to pronounce.

Etymology

Unutterable comes from un- 'not' and utter 'to speak', so it means 'not able to be spoken' and fits when a sound or word is too hard to say.