Pronunciations (4)
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/ɪˈnɛf.ə.bəl/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
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/ˌɪnˈɛf.ə.bəl/
Pronunciation notes
- US
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ɪˈnɛf.ə.bəl
Pronunciation notes
- GB
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ˌɪnˈɛf.ə.bəl
Pronunciation notes
- US
Adjective
Beyond expression in words; unspeakable.
Usage- not-comparable
- Examples
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Devotion bids aspire to nobler things, to boundless love, and joys ineffable: and such her expectation from kind Heav'n.
More examples (1)
Stroeve was trying to express a feeling which he had never known before, and he did not know how to put it into common terms. He was like the mystic seeking to describe the ineffable.
They, and many others, are one with the trains that ran them, part of that ineffable atmosphere of Scotland's railways.
More examples (2)
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
As Alan Watts (1961) wrote, it involves trying to speak the unspeakable, scrute the inscrutable and eff the ineffable.
Forbidden to be uttered; taboo.
Usage- not-comparable
- Synonyms
Noun
Something that is beyond utterance; something unspeakable.
Adjective
defying expression or description
- Examples
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indefinable yearnings
indescribable beauty
More examples (4)
ineffable ecstasy
unspeakable happiness
unutterable contempt
a thing of untellable splendor
too sacred to be uttered
- Synonyms
- Examples
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the ineffable name of the Deity