unintelligible

[ uhn-in-tel-i-juh-buhl ]

adjective

1. not intelligible; not capable of being understood.

   Synonyms: undecipherable, baffling, incomprehensible

unintelligible

/ ˌʌnɪnˈtɛlɪdʒɪbəl /

adjective

1. not able to be understood; incomprehensible

Other Words From

• unin·telli·gi·bili·ty unin·telli·gi·ble·ness noun
• unin·telli·gi·bly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of unintelligible¹

First recorded in 1610–20; un- ¹ + intelligible

Example Sentences

The 911 call is partly unintelligible, but police said his former girlfriend opened her bedroom door after he threatened to shoot through it.

From Los Angeles Times

He ignored the deputy’s orders and shouted something unintelligible before the deputy fired five times and Gerdvil fell to the ground.

From Los Angeles Times

For example, during a rally in Montana on Friday, Trump appears to “glitch” and pause as he searches for words and then makes unintelligible noises and strange utterances.

From Salon

In the rant, slammed by the Harris campaign as “unintelligible,” Trump seemingly, though not clearly, accused the search engine of biased search result ranking, a complaint he espoused nearly six years ago.

From Salon

After a corrupted chip rendered Voyager 1’s transmissions unintelligible in November 2023, engineers nursed the spacecraft back to health.

From Science Magazine

Related Words

• illegible
• impenetrable
• incomprehensible
• indecipherable
• meaningless
• opaque
• unfathomable
• vague