intelligibility
Americannoun
plural
intelligibilities-
the quality or condition of being intelligible; capability of being understood.
-
something intelligible.
Etymology
Origin of intelligibility
First recorded in 1600–10; intelligible + -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Lang also insists upon amplification, which can or cannot enhance the intelligibility of text.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 19, 2025
“They didn’t share his optimism that physics will be able to actually produce any theory of intelligibility and consciousness which is responsible for the physical picture of the world.”
From Salon • Jan. 17, 2025
He long ago left behind intelligibility, at least in the conventional sense.
From New York Times • Dec. 14, 2023
But like most palindromes, Tenet prizes reversibility over intelligibility: The point of “Able was I ere I saw Elba” is that it reads the same both ways, not that it teaches you anything.
From Slate • Aug. 27, 2020
If you watch any object as it fades in distance, it will lose gradually its force, its intelligibility, its anatomy, its whole comprehensible being; but it will never lose its gradation of light.
From Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) by Ruskin, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
