Unsayable

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Unable to be expressed in or communicated through language due to being beyond the scope of what can be articulated or put into words
2. Beyond what language can effectively convey due to intensity, taboo nature, or fundamental inexpressibility
3. That which cannot be put into words or adequately described by language

Etymology: "Unsayable" is built from two English parts: the prefix "un-", meaning "not," and "sayable," which means "able to be said." The root verb "say" comes from Old English "secgan," a word that passed through a long series of sound changes before becoming the short form we use today. The ending does most of the work in "sayable." It descends from Latin "-abilis," meaning "capable of being," which entered English through Old French "-able" and became a productive suffix, letting speakers attach it to nearly any verb to mean "able to be [verbed]." "Sayable" thus joins a long family of such words, from "readable" to "washable," and "unsayable" reverses that capacity by adding "un-," a prefix that goes back to the same ancient ancestor as the English "un-" in words like "unhappy." Because the word is a transparent compound of familiar parts, its sense follows directly from them: something that cannot be put into words. Its history is simply that of its ingredients, and it has no single coiner or first recorded use to point to.

Synonyms: inexpressible, indescribable

Antonyms: expressible, articulable