unreadable

[ uhn-ree-duh-buhl ]

adjective

1. not readable; undecipherable; scribbled:

   His scrawl was almost unreadable.

2. not interesting to read; dull; tedious; an unreadable treatise.
3. extraordinarily difficult to read or comprehend; obscure; incomprehensible:

   an unreadable dream; an unreadable expression.

unreadable

/ ʌnˈriːdəbəl /

adjective

1. illegible; undecipherable
2. difficult or tedious to read

Derived Forms

• unˈreadably, adverb
• unˌreadaˈbility, noun

Other Words From

• un·reada·bili·ty un·reada·ble·ness noun
• un·reada·bly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of unreadable¹

First recorded in 1795–1805; un- ¹ + readable

Example Sentences

They were heading home empty-handed when data from a previous day of exploration, which had originally been unreadable, was finally cleaned up.

From Los Angeles Times

Registrars in the two northern California counties began the painstaking task of transferring votes from unreadable ballots to duplicates that can be read by machine, a process that requires hand checking and has significantly slowed down the count.

From Los Angeles Times

A blank, unreadable expression on her face.

From BBC

On many of the notices, BBC Verify has found key details to be unreadable and drawn boundaries inconsistent with the text.

From BBC

Unreadable doorstops her books may be, but they would seem to reveal something about the psychology of a significant slice of Americans.

From Salon

Related Words

• incomprehensible
• indecipherable