inexpressible
- adjective
- /ˌɪnɪkˈsprɛsəbl/
- I felt an inexpressible apprehension as I looked at her face.
- express the inexpressible
I was taken up to paradise and I saw and heard things Inexpressible.
- I was taken up to paradise and I saw and heard things Inexpressible.
- And if you can get to the ABCD, that's great, except that now you've falsified this one because a key feature of it is that it's inexpressible.
- The the unspeakable or, or inexpressible cults.
- No, the absolutely erebicly irrational, is it inexpressible, is intransmissible.
Examples
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The inexpressible beauty of the mountains took my breath away, rendering me momentarily silent.
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I am overcome by an inexpressible awe that anything on earth could be so vast, so beautiful, so silent.
Academic text (2004) -
Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible
Academic text (2007) -
It's an inexpressible honor and privilege to stand on this stage beside him.
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There is one problem with intuition, however: it is inexpressible in words.
Academic text (1996) -
It leaves me with a sense of inexpressible shock.
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I felt a sense of inexpressible relief and realized that I had feared, more than death, separation from them.
Fiction book (1999) -
Maitland's triumphant arrival, he said, brought "inexpressible joy to the whole army."
Academic text (2014) -
We feel we are fumbling in the dark, groping for words to express the inexpressible.
Blog text (12) -
The sadness I felt after saying goodbye was inexpressible, leaving me speechless.
Synonyms
Too terrible to describe in words
So wonderful or strange that words cannot show it
So great that words cannot describe it
Hard to describe or explain in words
Hard to describe exactly in words
Too hard to describe in words
Too hard to put into words
So great you cannot describe it in words
So strong or deep that words cannot describe it
Antonyms
How Expressible
- Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
inexpressible = expressible (transparent) = in + express + ible
The prefix 'in-' straightforwardly negates 'expressible' to mean 'not able to be expressed'.
Etymology
Inexpressible is made of in- meaning 'not' and express meaning 'to say or show', the same root you see in express and expression. So inexpressible means 'not possible to say or show', which is why we use it for feelings or sights that words cannot fully describe.