ineffable
pronunciation
How to pronounce ineffable in British English:
UK [ɪnˈefəbl]
How to pronounce ineffable in American English:
US [ɪnˈɛfəbəl]
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- Adjective:
- defying expression or description
- too sacred to be uttered
Word Origin
- ineffable
- ineffable: [15] Ineffable literally means ‘that cannot be spoken’. Its ultimate source was the Latin verb fārī ‘speak’, which has also given English fable, fame, fate, etc. Addition of the prefix ex- ‘out’ produced effārī ‘speak out’, from which the adjective ineffābilis was derived. In 19th-century English the word was used as a plural noun, like unmentionables, as a humorous euphemism for ‘trousers’ or ‘nether garments’: ‘shoes off, ineffables tucked up’, William Cory, Letters and Journals 1867.=> fable, fame, fate
- ineffable (adj.)
- late 14c., from Old French ineffable (14c.) or directly from Latin ineffabilis "unutterable," from in- "not, opposite of" (see in- (1)) + effabilis "speakable," from effari "utter," from ex- "out" (see ex-) + fari "to say, speak," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say" (see fame (n.)). Plural noun ineffables was, for a time, a jocular euphemism for "trousers" (1823). Related: Ineffably.
Example
- 1. In its solemn hymn to the ineffable dark .
- 2. I shall glut the maw of that ineffable nameless evil which lurks forever in .
- 3. He put on a look of ineffable distress .
- 4. Silent & ineffable : functions of the unsaid in literature and the humanities .
- 5. In another headline , I used the word ineffable , only to discover that I didn 't know what it meant myself .