Undatable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Impossible to determine the age, time period, or origin of something
2. Not capable of being assigned a precise date or historical context
3. Unable to be fixed in time or accurately linked to a particular era

Etymology: "Undatable" is a plain construction: the prefix "un-", meaning "not" or "the reverse of," attached to "datable," which is itself built from "date" plus the adjectival ending "-able," meaning "capable of being." Put together, it describes something that cannot be given a date. The base word "date" takes its sense from the Latin "data," the feminine past participle of "dare," "to give," so a date is literally something given or assigned, a fixed point in time that is handed to an event or object. Adding "-able" turns that into a capacity: a manuscript, a fossil, or a photograph is "datable" when evidence allows someone to assign it a time. The "un-" prefix then reverses that capacity, so "undatable" names the condition of having no such evidence to work with. The word is most often used of material that has lost its context, such as a worn coin, an unlabelled pot, or an anonymous sketch, where nothing in the object itself settles when it was made.

Synonyms: unromantic, unlovable

Antonyms: desirable