inarticulate

1 of 2

adjective

in·​ar·​tic·​u·​late ˌi-(ˌ)när-ˈti-kyə-lət 

1

: incapable of giving coherent, clear, or effective expression to one's ideas or feelings

2

a(1)

: incapable of speech especially under stress of emotion : mute

(2)

: incapable of being expressed by speech

inarticulate fear

(3)

: not voiced or expressed : unspoken

society functions on many inarticulate premises

b

of a sound : uttered or formed without the definite articulations of intelligible speech

3

[New Latin inarticulatus, from Latin in- + New Latin articulatus articulate] : relating to, characteristic of, or being an inarticulate or its shell

inarticulately adverb

inarticulateness noun

inarticulate

2 of 2

noun

: any of a class (Inarticulata) of brachiopods lacking a hinge connecting the two shell valves

Synonyms

Adjective

• mute
• speechless
• voiceless

Examples of inarticulate in a Sentence

Adjective

He's smart, but somewhat inarticulate.

I was almost inarticulate with rage.

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

Face-to-face with horrendous history, the fictional journalist and the film itself become somewhat understandably inarticulate and fumbling. —Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Sep. 2023

Too annoying and inarticulate. —Judy Gold, CNN, 12 Nov. 2021

After all, every generation of music fans finds a like-minded peer group whose youthful, fleeting, inarticulate passion for one particular band provides a soft, stoned landing place in a hard world. —Dennis Perkins, EW.com, 13 July 2022

To see Amazon come out in support of Black Lives Matter, the same Amazon that orchestrated a campaign around people working in its processing centers and against a black organizer, calling him inarticulate. —Sidney Fussell, Wired, 19 June 2020

When television children were still speaking in zingers, these guys were defiantly inarticulate. —Jason Zinoman, New York Times, 4 Oct. 2022

The painfully inarticulate pol who delivered some of the most eloquent paeans to liberalism in memory. —Jackie Calmes, BostonGlobe.com, 20 Oct. 2022

More broadly though, while the acronym is an inarticulate representation of the issues at hand, companies will likely remain at the forefront of these issues. —Kristine Gill, Fortune, 14 Sep. 2022

Even the numbly inarticulate James records thoughts that trans readers might have had. —Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker, 20 June 2022

Noun

Our role is not to answer but to question, and to let our questioning run headlong, reckless, into the inarticulate. —Stephen Marche, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2022

To understand the gap between how Nitram saw himself versus how others perceived the inarticulate, angry young man, Kurzel assigned Jones tasks: film himself with a video camera, doodle in a diary. —New York Times, 1 Apr. 2022

In Heaney, the inarticulate, the mumblers, the provincial found a powerful well source of description to draw from. —Washington Post, 27 Jan. 2022

See More

Word History

Etymology

Adjective

Late Latin inarticulatus, from Latin in- + articulatus, past participle of articulare to utter distinctly — more at articulate

First Known Use

Adjective

1603, in the meaning defined at sense 2b

Noun

1952, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

inarticulate

adjective

in·​ar·​tic·​u·​late

ˌin-(ˌ)är-ˈtik-yə-lət

1

a

: not understandable as spoken words

inarticulate cries

inarticulate murmurs

b

: not able to speak

c

: not able to be expressed

inarticulate longings

2

: not able to give clear expression to ideas or feelings

an inarticulate speaker

inarticulately adverb

inarticulateness noun