Ineffable

Adjective

 * 1) Beyond expression in words; unspeakable.
 * 2) * Gay Watson, Stephen Batchelor, Guy Claxton, The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, science, and our day-to-day lives (2000) p. 100:
 * As Alan Watts (1961) wrote, it involves trying to speak the unspeakable, scrute the inscrutable and eff the ineffable.
 * 1) Forbidden to be uttered; taboo.

Antonyms

 * noisy

Synonyms

 * indescribable, inexpressible, unspeakable
 * taboo, unspeakable, unutterable
 * See also Thesaurus:indescribable

Related terms

 * ineffability
 * ineffableness
 * ineffably
 * counterparts in calculating:
 * innumerable
 * innumerous
 * unnumerable
 * incalculable

Thesaurus
abstract, awesome, awful, celestial, divine, empyreal, empyrean, ethereal, exceptional, extraordinary, fabulous, heavenly, holy, ideal, incommunicable, indefinable, indescribable, inenarrable, inexpressible, innominable, inviolable, inviolate, legendary, marvelous, mythical, noncommunicable, noteworthy, numinous, phenomenal, portentous, prodigious, religious, remarkable, sacred, sacrosanct, spiritual, stupefying, stupendous, transcendent, transcendental, undefinable, unexampled, unmentionable, unnameable, unparalleled, unprecedented, unspeakable, untellable, untouchable, unutterable, unwhisperable, venerable, wonderful

Etymology
First attested in 1450. From ineffable: from  ineffabilis: < in-: + effor:.

Translations

 * Czech:
 * Finnish:, sanoinkuvaamaton
 * French:
 * German:
 * Latin:
 * Manx: neufocklagh
 * Norwegian: ,


 * Polish: nieopisany
 * Portuguese: inefável (1), indescritível
 * Romanian: inefabil
 * Russian: невыразимый
 * Spanish:
 * Telugu: చెప్పలేని (cheppalEni)
 * Turkish: anlatılmaz


 * Norwegian:
 * Polish: ten, którego imienia się nie wymienia


 * Telugu: చెప్పరాని (chepparaani)
 * Turkish: ağza alınmaz

Adjective

 * 1) ineffable (unable to be expressed in words)
 * 2) * 1837 Louis Viardot, L’Ingénieux Hidalgo Don Quichotte de la Manchefr.Wikisource, translation of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Chapter I:
 * Il lui parut convenable et nécessaire, aussi bien pour l’éclat de sa gloire que pour le service de son pays, de se faire chevalier errant, de s’en aller par le monde, avec son cheval et ses armes, chercher les aventures, et de pratiquer tout ce qu’il avait lu que pratiquaient les chevaliers errants, redressant toutes sortes de torts, et s’exposant à tant de rencontres, à tant de périls, qu’il acquît, en les surmontant, une éternelle renommée. Il s’imaginait déjà, le pauvre rêveur, voir couronner la valeur de son bras au moins par l’empire de Trébizonde. Ainsi emporté par de si douces pensées et par l’ineffable attrait qu’il y trouvait, il se hâta de mettre son désir en pratique.
 * It seemed to him appropriate and necessary, as much for his own glory as for the service of his country, that he should become a knight-errant, and go about the world, with his horse and his weapons, looking for adventures, and practising everything that he had read that knights-errant practised, redressing all sorts of wrongs, and exposing themselves to so many encounters, to so many perils, that he should gain, in surmounting them, eternal fame. He already imagined himself, the poor dreamer, seeing himself crowned at least by the emperor of Trebizond. So carried away was he by such pleasant thoughts and by the ineffable attraction that he found in them, he hurried to put his desire into practice.