Unintelligibles

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. Difficult to comprehend due to unclear articulation, distorted sound, or confusing content ; lacking clarity in communication or expression ; producing words or signals that cannot be easily understood
2. Characterized by speech or messages that are not clearly expressed or are muddled so that meaning is obscured ; involving sounds or language that fail to convey a coherent message ; relating to communication that is confusing or indecipherable
3. Describing words, phrases, or utterances lacking clear meaning or pronunciation ; pertaining to vocalizations or transmissions that are vague, garbled, or confusing ; indicating communication that does not result in understandable information

Etymology: "Unintelligibles" is the plural of "unintelligible," which is what it is in its noun use: a mumbled or garbled passage that nobody can make out. The adjective behind it is formed from "intelligible," itself from Latin "intelligibilis," meaning "that can be understood," built on "intelligere," "to understand." The English prefix "un-" simply reverses it. "Intelligible" entered English in the late 1300s, and "unintelligible" followed in the early 1600s. The noun use is the more recent of the two. Writers in the 1600s and 1700s used the adjective freely, but "unintelligibles" as a plural noun for the speech itself is a later development, and its strongest association is with transcripts and recordings, where the word has become a convenient label for passages a transcriber could not decipher. Dictionaries mark it as a noun rather than a standard label for a particular kind of speech, so it describes the output, not the speaker.

Synonyms: incomprehensible, indecipherable, obscure, unclear, cryptic

Antonyms: intelligible, comprehensible, clear, lucid