Unprintableness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being unsuitable or inappropriate for publication; the characteristic of containing material that cannot be included in printed media; the condition of text or content being unacceptable for printing due to content or format
2. The state of not meeting publication standards due to offensive, sensitive, or restricted content; the property of being unable to be reproduced in print; the attribute of a work being disallowed from print distribution
3. A condition describing information or material that cannot be shown in printed form; the attribute of text that is banned or censored from publication; the aspect of media or writing that does not qualify for print inclusion due to content restrictions

Etymology: "Unprintableness" is a plain formation: the adjective "unprintable," meaning not fit to be printed, with the suffix "-ness" added to turn it into a noun for a state or quality. The base adjective is built from "un-," a prefix meaning "not," attached to "printable," which itself comes from "print" plus the suffix "-able," meaning capable of being. English has long used "-ness" to make abstract nouns from adjectives, so this word follows a pattern found in countless others, such as "happiness" or "darkness." The word's meaning follows the sense of its base. "Unprintable" has been used for material too indecent, offensive, or sensitive for publication, and "unprintableness" names that quality as an abstract property. Because the suffix is productive, the noun is mostly used when a writer wants to speak of unprintability as a thing in itself, such as the unprintableness of a particular text, rather than simply calling it unprintable.

Synonyms: illegibility, unpublishability

Antonyms: printability, legibility, publishability