Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use intelligible in a sentence

25 example sentences · adjective

Intelligible means capable of being understood; clear to the mind. Example: “Italian and Spanish are partially mutually intelligible languages.”

Examples of intelligible by meaning

adjectiveCapable of being understood; clear to the mind.

  • Italian and Spanish are partially mutually intelligible languages.
  • That comment seemed to anger Ingraham, who called James’ view a “barely intelligible, not to mention ungrammatical take on President Trump.”2018 February 17, Devan Cole, “LeBron James: ‘I am more than an athlete’”, in CNN

More sentences with intelligible

  • He stood there speechlessly. The surprise had rendered him unable to make an intelligible reply.From the entry speechlessly
  • This is also how the role of technoselves in contemporary life becomes intelligible.2012, Rocci Luppicini, editor, Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society. From the entry technoself
  • It holds that everything is rationally intelligible only so far as it instantiates mathematical rules and ratios.2003, The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, page 13. From the entry rationally
  • Fo speaks in “grammelot,” a kind of polyglot gabble speckled with an occasional intelligible word.1986 May 25, Scott Rosenberg, “Dario Fo, Italy's Political Clown, Pays a Visit”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry grammelot
  • The accompanying sketches will help to render our explanations more intelligible.1963, The Nation, J.H. Richards, page 691. From the entry overcutting
  • Another important point is that Homer recognises that the speech of Trojans and Greeks was mutually intelligible.1917, F. W. H. Migeod, The Racial Elements Concerned in the First Siege of Troy, in Man, Vol. 17. From the entry mutually intelligible
  • The diary carefully records the soil of the different localities passed under homely but intelligible farm terms.1904, Bryan J[ames] Clinch, California and Its Missions: Their History to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, volume II, San Francisco, C.A.…. From the entry oxwork
  • Not intelligible with Bon Gula or Zan Gula.2003, International encyclopedia of linguistics (William Frawley), volume 1, page 30. From the entry Zan Gula
  • Key abstract theorems are explained largely by physical reasoning, and are presented in the most concrete, intelligible fashion possible.1973, American Mathematical Society, Notices of the American Mathematical Society. From the entry epsilontics
  • Jesus becomes an intelligible and consistent person.1915 December (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Androcles and the Lion. Preface on the Prospects of Christianity.”, in Androcles and…. From the entry plain sailing
  • There are various accents of Nanning Pinghua spoken in the different suburbs of Nanning; their phonological differences are obvious, but they are mutually intelligible.2015, Hilary Chappell, Diversity in Sinitic Languages, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 159-160. From the entry Pinghua
  • Since glory is as bonifiable as it is intelligible, the saints in glory are glorified as much through bonifying as through understanding.1985, Raymond Lulle, Anthony Bonner (traducteur), Selected works of Ramon Llul, Princeton University Press, page 1234. From the entry bonifiable
  • I have analysed a total of 24 prophetic glossas in this way, and 10 passages of the more easily intelligible prayer specimens of glossolalia.1975, Temenos, page 50. From the entry glossa
  • But when he comes to writing let us give him sequenced explorables — to sustain and encourage in him the concept of an intelligible world.1968, Ivor Armstrong Richards, So Much Nearer: Essays Toward a World English, page 265. From the entry explorable
  • And the system of total obedience to the Leader he was creating prevented his underlings in the ideological departments from reformulating it into a more intelligible form.2025, Fyodor Tertitskiy, Accidental Tyrant: The Life of Kim Il-sung, London: C. Hurst & Co., →ISBN, page 161. From the entry Juche
  • The authors do an excellent job hitting high points in an intelligible manner so that readers don’t need a PhD in climate science to see the patterns.2016 September 26, John Abraham, “The Madhouse Effect of climate denial”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry in the weeds
  • "Yo, looser as a gooser." This bit of non-standard English, scarcely intelligible even to native speakers, was clear evidence that Mac was drunker than a skunker.2008, Peter Innes, The Man with the Grasshopper Mind, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 37. From the entry drunker than a skunker
  • And if the mind of the whole is taken to be a distinct consciousness, its relation to its beminded parts also requires to be made intelligible.2004, Errol E. Harris, Nature, Mind and Modern Science. From the entry beminded
  • The languages of all health care professions - medspeak, nursespeak, psychspeak, and so on - are extremely useful, but they are only intelligible to the initiated.1992, Rob Buckman, Yvonne Kason, How to break bad news: a guide for health care professionals, page 83. From the entry psychspeak
  • Freedom, then, always presupposes facticity, and a free act cannot occur, nor can the idea of a free act even be rendered intelligible, except against a background of facticity.1988, David Detmer, “Freedom”, in Freedom as a Value: A Critique of the Ethical Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre, Chicago; La Salle, Ill.: Open…. From the entry facticity
  • Miss H.'s voice was clear and intelligible, although it alternated between vocal blockings and extreme vocal hurry, every clause being jetted out suddenly, and rapidly decaying into aphonia.1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings. From the entry blocking
  • Bearing in mind that the veins have more compressible walls than the arteries, it is intelligible how they are more obliterated than the former when an organ becomes dislocated.1912, Interstate Medical Journal, page 249. From the entry obliterated
  • Dell’Oso describes the encounter of an Asian woman with a surly bus driver whose only language is Strine (a form of Australian English, barely intelligible to many of the native-speakers).1992, Gillian Bottomley, From Another Place: Migration and the Politics of Culture, published 2009, page 133. From the entry Strine

Meaning of intelligible

  1. adjective Capable of being understood; clear to the mind.

Full definition of intelligible

Questions about intelligible in a sentence

How do you use intelligible in a sentence?
Intelligible is used as an adjective. For example: “Italian and Spanish are partially mutually intelligible languages.”
What is a short sentence with intelligible?
“Jesus becomes an intelligible and consistent person.”
What does intelligible mean?
Intelligible means capable of being understood; clear to the mind.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: intelligible (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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