Unplottable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Incapable of being mapped or charted due to the absence of clear coordinates or identifiable points, unable to be schemed or organized due to lack of discernible pattern or design
2. Not capable of being represented on a map or plan as well as impossible to arrange or devise through planning or plotting because of ambiguous or hidden characteristics
3. Resistant to being drawn or diagrammed for spatial understanding and equally resistant to being schemed or strategized owing to elusive or untraceable qualities

Etymology: "Unplottable" is simply the English prefix "un-", meaning "not" or "the opposite of," attached to "plottable," which is the adjective form of "plot," used in the sense of marking points on a map or chart. Something that is plottable can be located, mapped, or drawn on a graph; "unplottable" describes a thing that resists that kind of fixing, whether because it lacks coordinates or landmarks, or, in the figurative sense, because it lacks any discernible pattern or design that would let someone scheme around it or organize it. The figurative use is the one that gives the word its character. A plan, a course of events, or a person's behaviour can be "unplottable" when it refuses to follow any trajectory that could be traced in advance. The word thus borrows the vocabulary of navigation and cartography and applies it to unpredictability, turning a surveyor's term into a description of chaos.

Synonyms: unchartable, unmappable

Antonyms: plottable, chartable, mappable