as in incomprehensible
impossible to understand
uttered only a string of unintelligible murmurs
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Recent Examples of unintelligible
The removal of Spears' Instagram account came after years of public concern and defense over her social media presence, in which the pop star has been seen posting dance videos (including with knives), sometimes with unintelligible and bizarre captions.
—
Edward Segarra, USA Today, 17 Nov. 2025
The vendor said some other things that were unintelligible because of the overlap between her live speech and the lagging translation.
—Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 16 Oct. 2025
The defense attorney played for jurors a recording of Nicholson, while at the hospital, making what sounded like moaning noises followed by unintelligible and mumbled words.
—Sean Emery, Oc Register, 6 Oct. 2025
But in an Akan language, the notion that an object could exist as a bare substrate, stripped of properties—say, the idea of a stone, with its weight, texture, and color subtracted—is basically unintelligible; the metaphysical split between a thing and its properties isn’t naturally expressible.
—Lula Konner, The New York Review of Books, 4 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for unintelligible
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unintelligible
Adjective
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The scope of the effort is almost incomprehensible, both for its sheer size and persistence on a low-lying peninsula, where the delineation between land and sea has always been somewhat unclear and is becoming less so.—
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In these cases, the equations will predict a fluid moving in some unphysical, incomprehensible way — spinning into an impossibly fast vortex, for instance, or instantly reversing its flow.—
Adjective
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Not to mention the titular bugs, a swarm of blood-invading creatures discovered by her new lover, the mysterious drifter Peter Evans (Namir Smallwood).—
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The Columbus, Ohio, police chief is speaking out for the first time since the mysterious murders of dentist Spencer Tepe and his wife, Monique Tepe.—
Adjective
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While airline miles are easier to earn than ever, using them well—and maximizing their value—can often feel confusing.—
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Choose decisive steps over a confusing kerfuffle!—
Adjective
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Some of Lilo’s predictions have gone viral for their uncanny accuracy.—
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There’s something uncanny about this still and stunning portrait of a twenty-one-year-old Taylor Swift, shot by Katy Grannan for Lizzie Widdicombe’s Profile of the singer, in 2011.—
Adjective
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By contrast, fringe subcultures operate in a more cryptic and chaotic manner.—
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Heeding these cryptic words some three decades later, the audacious (and well-read) impresario Tony Wilson opened the Haçienda together with the circle of post-punk musicians and designers involved with his label, Factory Records.—
Adjective
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Then there was the play that made many scratch their heads — the one when the Carolina Panthers’ game-tying field goal was blocked only for an esoteric NFL rule to award the Panthers with the ball, a new set of downs and great field position.—
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The ideological provocations of Madonna (Ciccone) iconography and the esoteric execution of Björk songs meet (again) in Lux’s palette of fixations.—
Adjective
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Miami has rekindled memories of its 2001 national championship team behind a defense that went from porous to nearly impenetrable in its first season under coordinator Corey Hetherman.—
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Miami has rekindled memories of its 2001 national championship team behind a defense that went from porous to nearly impenetrable in its first season under coordinator Corey Hetherman.—
Adjective
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God grant me the grace to forgive also, despite my unfathomable trauma.—
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On the contrary, over his previous four games (featuring three Knicks losses), Towns shot 4-of-9 from the field against the New Orleans Pelicans, 5-of-10 against the San Antonio Spurs, 6-of-16 against the Philadelphia 76ers and an unfathomable one-of-four against the Detroit Pistons.—
Cite this Entry
“Unintelligible.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unintelligible. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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