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indefinable
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
indefinable
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ She felt a sudden indefinable sadness.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And yet about him there hung the indefinable air of ugliness.
▪ Because of its name and that pale blue the school enjoyed a peculiar indefinable distinction.
▪ In coming here, he was actually following psychic instinct, an indefinable but insinuating impulse to visit the court of Voronov-Vaux.
▪ Moore's view is that it is a simple and therefore indefinable property.
▪ More and more the soldiers felt a certain indefinable malaise during their brief periods of leave at home.
▪ That has something to do with the indefinable thing called talent.
▪ The air in here was personalized and unhealthy in an indefinable way.
▪ You learn to recognise them through experience; it's often an indefinable something that's lacking.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Indefinable

Indefinable \In`de*fin"a*ble\, a. Incapable of being defined or described; inexplicable.
--Bp. Reynolds.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
indefinable

1810, from in- (1) "not, opposite of" + definable (see define). Related: Indefinably.

Wiktionary
indefinable

a. 1 That cannot be precisely defined or put into words 2 That defies description; indescribable n. Anything that cannot be defined.

WordNet
indefinable
  1. adj. not capable of being precisely or readily described; not easily put into words; "an indefinable feeling of terror"; "an abstract concept that seems indefinable" [syn: undefinable]

  2. defying expression or description; "indefinable yearnings"; "indescribable beauty"; "ineffable ecstasy"; "inexpressible anguish"; "unspeakable happiness"; "unutterable contempt"; "a thing of untellable splendor" [syn: indescribable, ineffable, unspeakable, untellable, unutterable]

Usage examples of "indefinable".

For one thing, there was a subtle, indefinable sense of limitless antiquity and utter alienage which affected one like a view from the brink of a monstrous abyss of unplumbed blackness - but mostly it was the expression of crazed fear on the puckered, prognathous, half-shielded face.

At some stage indefinable, the quarry must have realised what kind of ship the Biter was, or suspected her enough to want to sheer away.

Language, he understood, was chiefly important for the beauty of its sounds, byk its possession of words resonant, glorious to the ear, by its capacity, when exquisitely arranged, of suggesting wonderful and indefinable impressions, perhaps more ravishing and farther removed from the domain of strict thought than the impressions excited by music itself.

I have been told that he had wit, that he was well educated, and even in high spirits at times, but he could not get over his shyness, which gave him an almost indefinable air of stupidity.

Starwick gravely, but there was now lurking in his voice an indefinable drollery of humour.

There was about her, too, that indefinable ghastliness associated with recent death.

To judge by his appearance this miserable being had no longer anything human about him, and yet Harding, as had the reporter already, observed in his look an indefinable trace of intelligence.

The room was well lighted by a number of large windows and was beautifully decorated with mural paintings and mosaics, but upon all there seemed to rest that indefinable touch of the finger of antiquity which convinced me that the architects and builders of these wondrous creations had nothing in common with the crude half-brutes which now occupied them.

Do you know that he is so like in every lineament, look, and gesture, that, against the, clearest light of reason, I cannot in my mind separate the one from the other, and have a certain indefinable expression on my mind that they are one and the same being, or that the one was a prototype of the other.

But here in this analogue cosmos they were unimportant, secondary to a colossal shape crouching in an indefinable mid-region, a black corpulence in which floated half-unseen a golden nucleus, like the moon behind clouds.

I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chaevronae, and Marathon, and the field round Mont St Jean and Hugoumont appears to want little but a better cause and that indefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except perhaps the last-mentioned.

Dumbledore, taking a step toward Fudge, and once again, he seemed to radiate that indefinable sense of power that Harry had felt after Dumbledore had Stunned young Crouch.

No, all this can not be drawn, can not be expressed, but remains undemonstrable, indefinable.

Or was it delight unmastered, and awe indefinable, that paralyzed him?

If everyone here knew his present thoughts, if that message in greenish cipher that moved across the board represented the read-outs of Lyle Wynant, it would be mental debris alone that caused him humiliation, all the unwordable rubble, the glass, rags and paper of his tiny indefinable manias.