ineffable
UK/ɪˈnɛf.ə.bəl//ˌɪnˈɛf.ə.bəl/
ineffable adjective: beyond expression in words; unspeakable.
Adjective
ineffable (not comparable)
- Beyond expression in words; unspeakable.
- Devotion bids aspire to nobler things, to boundless love, and joys ineffable: and such her expectation from kind Heav'n.1750, “Theodora”, Thomas Morell (lyrics), George Frideric Handel (music)
- 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.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 39, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- indescribable, inexpressible, unspeakable, indefinable, undescribable, indicible, untold, inenarrable, inutterable, nameless
- Antonyms:
- effable
- Forbidden to be uttered; taboo.
- Synonyms:
- taboo, unspeakable, unutterable
Noun
ineffable (plural ineffables)
- Something that is beyond utterance; something unspeakable.
ineffable meaning in Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada
ineffable in Telugu
- beyond expression
- చెప్పలేని ceppalēni
- forbidden to be uttered
- చెప్పరాని cepparāni
ineffable in Malayalam
- inexpressible, indescribable, beyond words
- അവർണ്ണനീയം, അവാച്യം, വിവരണാതീതമായിട്ടുള്ള, വിവരിക്കാനാവാത്ത, വാചാതീതമായ, പറഞ്ഞറിയിക്കാന്കഴിയാത്ത
- unmentionable, unutterable, taboo
- പറയാൻ പാടില്ലാത്ത, പറയരുതാത്ത, ഉച്ചരിക്കാൻവയ്യാത്ത, പറയാൻ കൊള്ളാത്ത, അകർണ്ണ്യ, കേൾക്കാൻ കൊള്ളരുതാത്ത
ineffable in Kannada
- ಮಾತಿಗೆ ಮೀರಿದ, ನುಡಿಗೆ ಸಿಲುಕದ, ಅನಿರ್ವಚನೀಯ, ವರ್ಣನಾತೀತ, ನುಡಿಯಲಾಗದ, ಮಾತಿಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕದ
Examples of ineffable in a sentence
- They, and many others, are one with the trains that ran them, part of that ineffable atmosphere of Scotland's railways.1958 July, J. P. Wilson, “Scottish Soliloquy”, in Railway Magazine, page 495:
- As Alan Watts (1961) wrote, it involves trying to speak the unspeakable, scrute the inscrutable and eff the ineffable.2012, Gay Watson, Stephen Batchelor, Guy Claxton, The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, science, and our day-to-day lives:
Synonyms of ineffable
- indescribable
- inexpressible
- unspeakable
- indefinable
- undescribable
- untold
- inenarrable
- inutterable
- nameless
- termless
6 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of ineffable
| plural | ineffables |
|---|
Origin of ineffable
Borrowed from Middle French ineffable, a learned borrowing from Latin ineffābilis, from in- (“not”) + effābilis (“utterable”).
Phrases with ineffable
Questions about ineffable
- What does ineffable mean?
- Ineffable means beyond expression in words; unspeakable.
- What is ineffable in Telugu?
- Ineffable in Telugu is చెప్పలేని (ceppalēni), చెప్పరాని (cepparāni). See Ineffable meaning in Telugu.
- How do you use ineffable in a sentence?
- They, and many others, are one with the trains that ran them, part of that ineffable atmosphere of Scotland's railways.
- What part of speech is ineffable?
- Ineffable can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce ineffable?
- Ineffable is pronounced /ɪˈnɛf.ə.bəl/ (UK).
Words near ineffable in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ineffable (page history and authors); ineffable (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ineffable (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-ineffable.ogg, en-au-ineffable.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ineffable.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ineffable. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.